Who Do You Have to Know to Get Decent Prok Around This Place?

Oh, dear. Tonight we had Chinese carry out.

I have tried and tried to find a dish from this restaurant that I can stomach, some kind of chicken, perhaps, that is not merely fried skin, which must be masticated like a Charleston Chew. The fare used to be really good. I have not given up hope. But now I have gone through General Tso's, Hunan Chicken, Hot Braised Chicken, and Cashew Chicken. Even the Doublemint Twins themselves, after years of practice with their Wrigley fringe benefits, could not have had jaws strong enough to enjoy such meals. I daresay, that the "No one ever pays ME in gum" guy would be jumping for joy with such a plate set before him.

A few Chinese meals ago, I chose Hunan Pork. Problem solved! It came with a couple of hoglegs of sliced meat, tender, tasty, but a little bit too spicy in the sauce department. Yes, I understand that "Hunan" is synonymous with hot spicy sauce. But it's all I've found that's acceptable lately. So I asked Hick to order it without the black peppers. You know. Those black pepper bean thingies that look like the charred inside parts of green beans. That worked out well. Until tonight.

I asked Hick if he had remembered to order my Hunan Pork without the black peppers. "Yes. But they were fussing at each other back in the kitchen, so I don't know what you've got." Hm. Sounds like some advance warning that he forgot. Setting the stage to let the cooks take the fall.

My first inkling that something might be amiss was the handwritten label on my stapled-lid styrofoam container. One word. "Prok." Ahem. Around here, we call it "pork," and reserve that backwards O-R thing for keeping connoisseurs of inappropriate-for-family-viewing videos from accidentally landing on one's blog. Somebody in that kitchen might have some 'splainin' to do if there's a big honkin' overage on the internet plan.

I pried open my container with a serving spoon, and saw that my white rice and prok were covered with pepper beans like black spots on a dalmation. Huh. I spent the better part of ten minutes hunched over the kitchen counter like a bell-ringer from Notre Dame, picking those hot spots out of my meal. It was not an easy task. My back started to seize up like a Tin Man left out in the rain. I needed one of those wide Walmart belt-harness thingies to prevent injury.

To make matters worse, not all the black pepper beans were in plain sight. I caught five of them hiding in a broccoli floret like clown fish in a sea anemone. In the way of my black pepper bean harvest were other assorted vegetables. Like those sweated strands of onion that were linked together at the middle like a centromere connecting sister chromatids during mitosis. And the mushrooms, for lack of a feather in their cap, concealed black pepper beans up under there. Working a double shift cleaning toxins out of puffer fish at a five-star restaurant would surely have been less taxing.

However...I must admit that, once de-peppered, my Hunan Prok was quite tasty.