Of All the Fried Bread Stands in All the World

Many of you know my penchant for breakfast. I love breakfast. Specifically, I love hot breakfast. I will eat cereal, but I consider it expedient, not good. Still, a morning must start with breakfast. I get mighty grumpy without any food in my belly, and there is nothing worse than a grumpy teacher.

I've been having problems in China because I don't have access to good breakfast. Although Katy stepped up and shipped me some Joe's Os (it turns out, I don't like Cheerios anymore), the post office ate them (perhaps literally). Without Joe's Os and sketchy milk (at best), I've been at something of a loss. I could cook eggs every morning, but that's a drag. I'm too lazy for that.

Fortunately, I live in China, and even in my remote, backwoods part of the city, street food abounds.

I've been going to the Fried Bread Man and His Wife lately, and it's good. Very good.

The man has a pedal cart with a griddle on it. He mans the griddle and his wife mans the counter. I think she also rolls out the bread dough. There is a bucket with a bunch of ones and fives in it on the counter.

As you walk up, the man is deftly flipping pieces of fried bread (think a sorta thick tortilla, like a chalupa) and dousing them with oil. Flip, oil. Flip oil. Flip. Then, he dips his chopsticks in some corn starch (or something similar), cracks an egg in a bowl and scrambles the egg. He pokes a little hole in a bubble in a piece of bread and pours in the egg. The egg fills the center cavity and cooks up. Flip, flip. Then, he slides the top of the griddle to the side and places the bread in the oven (think of a tandoor). You can see the glowing hot coals in the center of the oven and a shelf around the edge where the bread sits.

As you get to the front of the line, the woman shouts something at you. You don't know, so like the people ahead of you, you throw a five in the bucket and take out a couple of ones. (Crepe Man charges 3 kwai, maybe Fried Bread Man and His Wife do, too.) Nope, she yells at you some more, then finally tosses another kwai your way. She tried to not touch the money. I guess fried bread only costs two kwai.

She takes a bread from the man and paints on the ubiquitous red bean paste. She asks about your hot sauce preference, and you motion "just a little" with your thumb and forefinger. Then, she chopsticks on a piece of green leaf lettuce and a chopsticks-full bunch of pickled something. Into a plastic baggie and off you go.

Dear me. Is it good. The bread is hot and crisp. The egg is filling. The lettuce is crunchy. The hot sauce is enough to wake you up, but not so much that your poor mei guo ren (American) taste buds scream in anger. It is half a block up the street from where you turn right to go to school. It means crossing a street (twice), but it is worth it.

Remember, two kwai is $.30. 

This morning, I took the hint of a man ahead of me in line last time, and I got two fried breads. She puts them face to face, like a giant sammich. It seemed she remembered me, too. I got a big, toothy grin when I dropped my money in the bucket (and then took the correct change).

I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.