COMMENTARY, Feb 22 — Our friend and his wife had asked us out for lunch a couple of weekends ago. They hadn’t seen us in ages, they said. Years.
(Years. This notion is true for so many of us these days. Life in the time of a pandemic. We adjust accordingly. But yes, years.)
Where shall we go? What shall we have? They suggested Sichuan; they had been to this Chinese restaurant run by a Japanese chef recently. Sure, we said. We’re game. The point was to meet and reminisce, something we used to take for granted but now is a luxury, a gift.
Did we squander the precious time and opportunity we had before, holed up in our homes and offices, preferring the company of screens to that of actual human beings?
I’m sure we never intended it that way; but as Gemma Chan’s character Sersi pointed out to Sprite (played deftly by Lia McHugh) in the 2021 film Eternals, smartphones are addictive. We scroll away and then wonder one day, Where did all that time go?
The restaurant our friends chose was housed in a bungalow along Jalan Yap Kwan Seng in KL. Its name was intriguing enough – The 19th Suzuki Hanten – but its interior perhaps more so.
We walk in and are greeted by walls painted in emerald green and scarlet-hued sofas. Bird cages for ceiling lamps.
One of us remarked the effect is not unlike the set of a Wong Kar-Wai film. The reds and greens put one in the mood for... Sichuan cuisine? Fortunately, we all brought healthy appetites with us.
To begin, a pair of their signature dishes. First, the iconic mapo tofu, where pieces of bean curd (dòufu) and minced meat are fried in a spicy-red sauce redolent of fermented beans and chilli paste.
Legend has it the dish was first served by a pock-marked woman (mápó in Chinese), hence its name. We recalled renditions that we had savoured in the past that lacked the requisite málà or numbing spiciness, a trademark of Sichuan cuisine.
Judging by the pleasant tingle on our tongues, this plate had enough málà to spare.
Next, the jiǔcài chǎo niú gān or stir fried beef liver with chives. An acquired taste for those who shun offal, but their loss as the liver had been gently “velveted” with egg white and starch. Kudos to Chef Shotaro Takemura who had trained in Sichuan cuisine at Tokyo’s Shisen Hanten.
Every tender slice reminded me of the motsu (beef innards) I enjoyed as part of the smoky tsukumen at Sugari, a ramen shop in Kyoto. It has been years since we have been to Japan, I observed. Our friends agreed; they had scheduled a trip there two years ago but had to cancel once the pandemic spread.
A story we hear often – travel plans derailed – but the details are always different. What is different is the people, you see. And it’s easy to lose touch with those we love and care about; there are more excuses than ever before to forget about connecting or reconnecting.
This meal was a way to remedy that.
We chatted about how we have known our friend and his wife from when they were first dating to the blissful years after marriage. We have seen them grow and they, too, have seen how we flourished over time.
Our spouses and our partners are our best mirrors, but sometimes it’s our family and friends who see angles that we both miss.
Other dishes soon arrived, a little out of order, but no matter. The conversation would flow on regardless.
Crispy jiǔcài bǐng or garlic chive pancakes with dried shrimp. Huíguōròu or “twice cooked beef” – where the meat is first simmered in spices before chilled and then returned to the wok for a quick stir fry. Stir fried seasonal vegetables for fibre.
Our friends noted that not all the dishes were palate-punishing, neither too fiery or stupefying. Sichuan cuisine is more than numbing spice.
We adore our friends and enjoy sharing the food we love with them, and them in turn. (We would not have thought of Sichuan cuisine, not that weekend, so credit where credit is due.)
Dining together with our friends and catching up seemed like the most ordinary activity in the world but we still remember months of lockdown and the early days of the pandemic when this was but a fantasy.
A time for conversation and conviviality is utterly precious.
Sweet endings, then, before we had to part and go our own ways again. A trio of desserts: a chilled almond pudding, sesame pudding and purple Mont Blanc.
That last one pulled us down memory lane again: this time to Paris, where we had decadent hot chocolate at La Maison Angelina, and also their famed and much-copied Mont Blanc. A meringue sphere wearing a coat of rich cream and chestnut purée.
The purple Mont Blanc (or zǐ shǔ méng bùlǎng) before us replaced the original chestnut purée with purple sweet potato. It’s certainly a far cry from a more málà confection.
Sichuan cuisine is more than numbing spice, clearly.
And relationships are more than merely staying nice: beyond hoping for more good days than bad, we have to embrace all the days as they come. The brilliant ones and the terrible ones, for they will have their turn.
We have to reach out, stay in touch and grow together. And may we stay hale and healthy and have many more delicious meals to come.
For more slice-of-life stories, visit lifeforbeginners.com.
