Fall is Here

I went out to lunch at a restaurant behind the school with my roommate and two of her classmates I hadn’t met before. I watched people walking past the window, slightly more bundled up because of a cool wind, and was instantly put in mind of a fall afternoon in New York. It was a nice feeling of familiarity, and though the weather’s been getting cooler all week, it was the first time I really felt like fall had arrived.

On a separate note, I’d like to write a bit about Chinese snacks. If there is one thing American cities lack, it’s street food, and China seems to be the capital of street eating. There’s a small alley behind the back gate of our school with various small restaurants and noodle shops, but the real spectacle is at night when the alley is chock full of vendors and carts selling anything from Chinese crepes, roasted pork sandwiches, dumplings, fried rice, stuffed pastries, all the way to these kebab things with various vegetables and meats that you can pick and have fried right in front of you. These various snacks are put in small plastic bags, which you can carry back to your room or eat from while walking down the street. On the weekends, vendors set up all over (mostly outside bars) with long metal boxes of lit coals and lamb skewers, fanning the flames and roasting the kebabs. I once saw one of these metal boxes, still glowing, on the back of someone’s bike riding down the street.

Though I have a few favorites, I’m always excited to try new snack foods, many of which are various bready pastries or fried dumpling type things. If I need change for the bus, I can just grab a sesame ball and nibble at it while I wait at the stop. I once had an octopus skewer, which was seasoned a bit oddly, and there’s a great crepe sandwich with some vegetables and a slightly sweet sauce. My favorite is a plain, puff-pastry type bread, sometimes with a bit of hot sauce thrown on.