Hong Kong

There's a Chinese food restaurant in Suffolk that we've been going to for years. Jonas was being fussy and refusing to sleep so we decided to take a drive and stopped in on a whim.

K introduced me to Hong Kong (just "Hong Kong", not "Hong Kong Garden" or "Hong Kong #1") during one of my early pre-relocation visits. We ordered a bunch of the delicious food and took it back to the hotel room, eating on the wide bed and watching cable TV or a movie on my laptop. Even before we went broke and the food took on the extra flavor of decadent luxury Hong Kong has the best Chinese food we've ever tasted. It's located far enough out in Suffolk that the drive itself is a relaxing treat but not so far away as to become a pain.

Hong Kong resides in a small, sprawling shopping center consisting of a grocery store and perhaps eight other businesses. All around is green and trees, and this year I note a field of corn across the street. The cross-street is a simple two-lane road without street lights that winds into small neighborhoods and fields. The restaurant itself can house about forty people, I'd say, but I've never seen anyone eat there. It seems everyone gets their food to go. I've never even been asked if my order was dine in or carry out. The lack of sit-down customers doesn't translate into slow business though, as the cooks are always busy. People regularly come and go, collecting heavy bags of stiff brown paper full of warm food, the tops folded over and stapled neatly. It smells good in there, always.

The industrial strength carpet has remnants of blue in the mix but has taken on the dark gray of immeasurable foot traffic. Long thin rectangles of missing thread run at diagonal angles towards the front counter. Hong Kong is old and worn but clean, with well established character much like the family members who run it. The back-lit pictures of menu items above the counter seem impossibly old; faded and seemingly ageless I can imagine they've existed forever. There's a humongous photograph mural, also back-lit but not as faded, of forested cliffs and mountains from some far off Asian country, the surface of the plastic still smooth and glossy. Other ornamentation include scrolls and calendars, business licenses, the obligatory lucky waving cat, and "no smoking" signs, most of which are slightly yellowed with time.

Always behind the counter is a young Asian girl, although she's now probably in her mid-twenties. Everyone who works here is part of the same family and K went to high school with the children, whom I'm told are the only ones who speak English. She looks exactly the same as she always has, her advancing age only sensed as something coming through from behind her skin. She has perfect English and works the simple cash register with remarkable speed and accuracy, like she's been doing it for a lifetime. Her skill has the air of extreme boredom, as does the tone even I can detect as she turns to relay my order to her older family members in their native language.

After she translates my order (vegetable lo mien) she sits behind the counter. There's never any small talk or conversation beyond the borders of order placement. At first it seems like she's looking at me, her eyes moving just above it's surface, but a second later I realize there must be a computer screen crammed behind the counter. I gather she's checking Facebook or watching videos online, which would explain the slight smile in her eyes. It's the only time I've seen any change in her expression.

Sitting at one of the identical Formica tables I realize I don't have my pen on me for the first time in lord knows how long. I tell the girl I'll be right back and head out to the car to see what I can find. I pull a green notebook from between the driver seat and center console and ask K for the pen she always keeps in her wallet, but apparently Jonas has misplaced it. The urge to write get stronger with every obstacle. I know if I had a notebook and pen on me I wouldn't want to write as badly. I find a carpenter's pencil among the crap in the console and head back inside. The huge graphite notes I scribble while discreetly taking in the details of my surroundings feel like a scratch over a very needy itch, the kind that gives so much relief it's worth having the itch there in the first place.

Soon my own brown paper bag is ready and I cradle it warm against my chest as I walk out, nodding my thank yous and finishing a sentence in two-line-tall letters. I can't wait to get home and dig in to both of these.