There is a restaurant two blocks down the street from my Brooklyn first-floor apartment called the Empire Wok. I would say that it’s the quintessential Brooklyn Chinese takeout restaurant, except that all the other ones are too. They all have the same pictures (Pepper Steak under a Ford-era coating of fat-steam varnish) and the same black plastic menu displays. And the same menus. And the same food. Which is invariably bad. And yet, this bleak,depressing canteen, with its quasi-rancid deep-fryer stench, is making me quiver with longing. I’m not taking any solid food today or tomorrow; so I’m taking my pleasures in fantasyland. It’s not pretty.

This Isagenix program I’m on, a radical remedy for my fatness. I know, I know, I‘m not fat. That‘s true only in a limited sense. It’s ok for me to be somewhat fat — I exude manly authority, I’m publically obsessed with food, a certain ecclesiastical grandeur should emanate from me. A thin Josh Ozersky wouldn’t make sense; it would be like a fat Molly Sims. But a truly fat Josh Ozersky would be merely sad. So I’ve turned back from the precipice, but this hardship sends my mind back to my days in the Hoboken ghetto.

As a not-especially lean but hungry freelancer back in the early 90s, I lived for the first time in close proximity to one of these Chinse takeouts. Nearly all their Chinese stuff was even worst that what I was used to from South Jersey strip malls, but they had this miraculous section of the menu, in its own little red-lined box. It was all things that came out of the deep fryer and included, but was not limited to, fried half-chickens, big flat breaded pork chops, rib tips (more on these later), whiting, cheese puffs, chicken wings, and fish sticks. This was the “American Foods” menu and the open secret about all these restaurants is that it accounts for half of their sales. There was a four-step price structure, and neither it nor the prices have changed: the all cost between three and four dollars, and then for another $1 or so you can get french fries or bright yellow fried rice with hardly anything in it except a few token scallions and an onion here or there. For $1.50 you can make it pork or chicken fried rice. For another $1, at the far end of the scale there was another, even more opulent option that I so rarely considered that I can’t remember it today.

Article continues below...

Ah, to have the half a fried chicken and roast pork fried rice right now! It came in four hacked-up pieces, with the bone shreds rendered harmless by freezer burn and sterilizing oil. I would save the thigh for last, and begin with the wing, whose dry white meat and mother lode of salty crispy thick skin made it idea for a first bite that wouldn’t burn your mouth. Then I would rip the big flap of skin / breading (they were as one) from the breast. A few spoons of pork fried rice, amply salted, and sometimes, buttered; this was frequently my one meal of the day when I was young and broke, and by god I meant it to be good. The chicken never stood a chance, but often there was rice left over for breakfast. O happy day! The apartment was unspeakably filthy, and decorated only with a framed picture of Lee Marvin, but no man ever took more feverish pleasure in his freedom as I did in those days.

This apartment is elegant, large, and has a lovely woman living in it with me. But I still miss that chicken and roast pork fried rice. I plan on eating it Tuesday.

Image courtesy of Food in Mouth:

• 6 Comments
• More by this Author

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Food, Friends, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.