2.27.2006
Pizza, pizza.
I'm back, with more about--you guessed it--Chinese pizza. Is two straight posts too much information on Chinese pizza? Possibly, but what can I say--them's good eatin', as they say, although I'm not exactly sure who "they" are, although "they" apparently aren't big on grammar and, I'm guessing, are from a more rural area. (Note that, in this case, "more rural area" is a polite way of saying "hicks" or "rednecks" or "from Kentucky"--take your pick.)
Anyway, I did some research on this whole Chinese pizza thing and I've found out a bit more. And by research I mean I read a post on Shanghaiist, a useful web site about--wait for it--Shanghai, which I didn't even have to find because I got it in an RSS feed, so I basically just clicked a link and nothing more. However, for those of you too lazy to click on the link and thereby do as much "research" on this topic as I have, I'll give you the short version: the minority group that claims to have invented it are the Tujia minority, a group of people I have never heard of before but are apparently from Hubei, a province a few provinces west of Shanghai and just east of Sichuan Province, which doesn't really mean anything to me either if it makes you feel better.
But whatever, the fact remains that the pizza is really popular, as evidenced by the following picture of the pizza line at the place we stopped at on Friday afternoon. You'll notice that Holly and her "Prada" purse are almost to the front of the line:
(Hint: for those of you who don't know who Holly is, she's the white person.)
Don't worry though, as far as I can tell, the popularity of Commie ... er, Chinese ... pizza is not cutting into the Middle Kingdom's desire for good, old-fashioned Freedom ... er, American ... pizza. (That roaring sound you hear is 58 million Italians screaming at me at once.) Yes, the lines for Pizza Hut are as long as ever, regardless of the weather:
Have I mentioned before that there's usually a line at Pizza Hut here? I'm not sure. Yes, it's a bit odd; and no, the line doesn't move that fast, since Pizza Hut here is a classy, sit-down restaurant. And this isn't even a big Pizza Hut line: I'd say it's about average-sized for a weekend. On Valentine's Day, the line at the other Pizza Hut by our apartment was at least three times as long as this, wrapping around itself several times like a coiled snake. A coiled, pizza-loving snake. As for which is weirder--the fact that the line was that long or that so many people here apparently equate "Pizza Hut" with "Classy Valentine's Day Dinner"--I'm not sure. I think it might be a tie, although obviously in this case there are no winners. Well, except Yum!, the company that owns Pizza Hut. And KFC. All together, there are seven of those restaurants within a ten minute walk of my front door. The moral of the story? Buy stock in Yum! now. Seriously.
Anyway, I did some research on this whole Chinese pizza thing and I've found out a bit more. And by research I mean I read a post on Shanghaiist, a useful web site about--wait for it--Shanghai, which I didn't even have to find because I got it in an RSS feed, so I basically just clicked a link and nothing more. However, for those of you too lazy to click on the link and thereby do as much "research" on this topic as I have, I'll give you the short version: the minority group that claims to have invented it are the Tujia minority, a group of people I have never heard of before but are apparently from Hubei, a province a few provinces west of Shanghai and just east of Sichuan Province, which doesn't really mean anything to me either if it makes you feel better.
But whatever, the fact remains that the pizza is really popular, as evidenced by the following picture of the pizza line at the place we stopped at on Friday afternoon. You'll notice that Holly and her "Prada" purse are almost to the front of the line:
(Hint: for those of you who don't know who Holly is, she's the white person.)
Don't worry though, as far as I can tell, the popularity of Commie ... er, Chinese ... pizza is not cutting into the Middle Kingdom's desire for good, old-fashioned Freedom ... er, American ... pizza. (That roaring sound you hear is 58 million Italians screaming at me at once.) Yes, the lines for Pizza Hut are as long as ever, regardless of the weather:
Have I mentioned before that there's usually a line at Pizza Hut here? I'm not sure. Yes, it's a bit odd; and no, the line doesn't move that fast, since Pizza Hut here is a classy, sit-down restaurant. And this isn't even a big Pizza Hut line: I'd say it's about average-sized for a weekend. On Valentine's Day, the line at the other Pizza Hut by our apartment was at least three times as long as this, wrapping around itself several times like a coiled snake. A coiled, pizza-loving snake. As for which is weirder--the fact that the line was that long or that so many people here apparently equate "Pizza Hut" with "Classy Valentine's Day Dinner"--I'm not sure. I think it might be a tie, although obviously in this case there are no winners. Well, except Yum!, the company that owns Pizza Hut. And KFC. All together, there are seven of those restaurants within a ten minute walk of my front door. The moral of the story? Buy stock in Yum! now. Seriously.
