Thursday, December 20, 2007

Tibetans Have Kitchens, Too: Part I

After passing by the self-proclaimed "first Tibetan restaurant in Massachusetts!"* for two and half years, I finally stepped through the doors of House of Tibet Kitchen, in Teele Square, Somerville. My ladyfriend companion made the suggestion. And what a keen and fortuitous suggestion it was.

Some background: She and I had made a tentative agreement to treat ourselves to edible goodness at least once a month. To those who label us ascetics, pointing and hollaring about self-hatred, not to mention your blatant misquoting of the Bible ("For Yelp so loved the world it reviewed the best curry joints under $10; go forth into the night and eat!"), just calm down. We're starving artists-in-training, and thus must become familiar with the taut pull of our skin against our protruding ribs. I've switched to 1% milk from my preferable skim, if only to stave off social workers from stopping me on the street and asking me if I'd like a nice goose dinner.

Where was I? Oh yes--once a month "dining." There's the inevitable chinese take-out, or a spontaneous ducking into the nearest pub for the eponymous grub. But given our penchant for good eats, and the dusty realms of our pocketbooks, we decided to compromise. I'd now write something about "eatin' good in the neighborhood," but fear litigation from [_________] (name of chain restaurant deleted. Hint: it's a slant rhyme with Trappable Fleas).

This month, we decided to stretch not only our gustatory horizons, but our geographic ones as well. I proffered Brazillian; she declined, perhaps not wanting to nibble cooked meats off a stick, as such a masculine gesture would appear unfit in the absence of recently departed literary giant (and holder of several machismo-related unofficial world records--whether these include the eating of meats-on-sticks, I can't be sure, but I have my hunches), Norman Mailer. In light of her rejection, I sighed, crestfallen. Whatever that means.**

"How about Tibetan?" she asked.

An off-key Mike D. couldn't have sounded sweeter. Somewhere, a gong rang out in the distance. Birds erupted into flight from a pond-surface stand-still. The decision had been made: Tibetan it was.


----(To Be Continued)----


*Which is sort of like the inverse of "last Morman guy to consider polygamy," if you think about that really hard.

** Princeton's online dictionary offers a synonym for "crestfallen" in lieu of initial definition: Crestfallen --adj., chapfallen. Oh! Crestfallen is the same as "chapfallen"! Now I get it.