I was worried that whatever the special oil was would be the sort of hot that I couldn’t handle. The rankings of chilis on the menu mean nothing without an actual reference. One place's single chili rating could be another place’s three. Luckily, I had nothing to worry about.

They were busy, but the server directed me to the one open table remaining. I scanned the patrons and realized it was full of locals–precisely what I wanted. Another server brought over a menu far more approachable than the binders at the other place. Each page except the sections for dumplings and drinks had two to three options, pictures of each option, and a translation (sometimes humorously bad) into English.

The shift in topics helped, kind of. But in every quiet moment between then and now, it returned. This deep sense of emptiness. There was a realization that my race to write every fucking thing I see and tell it to the whole fucking world was some sort of desire to fill that space. To engage in ways that I usually would be but through different means.

But here’s the thing, even in the places you’d expect to respect the sodium requirement of a cultural-casserole-esque palette, I’ve been let down.

Asking for condiments was a violation almost as grave as not wanting to try something unfamiliar. It was a corollary rookies would often violate. No matter how much we tried to stop or prepare them for the protocol, we’d inevitably fail. One such occasion came in my sophomore year of high school, one of my less experienced friends joined us for the usual Friday feast of grilled meats, rice (one bowl of plain rice, another bowl of rice with egg yolk), and salad.