Tom was searching on BaiDu and stumbled on a hamburger joint that looked pretty good.
He was missing his hamburgers and wanted to go, so we took the subway up 6 stops and after getting off the subway, he navigated us a few blocks to "Hana." It was a nice part of town, the weather was actually quite comfortable and it wasn't too far of a walk so that was all welcome.When we arrived, we had to order off a chalkboard menu written in characters. I used Google Lens to translate it. All of the 'burgers' were mostly chicken burger and had things on them we didn't really prefer: eggs and legs and such.... So 3 of us picked a burger with a pineapple slice, and asked that the cheese be held. Greta wanted the onion rings and fries so Tom pointed to the picture on his phone and said 'yi ge' (one of these), the guy nodded and we sat down.
While we waited we were entertained by this cutie.
She gave each of us a plum. She wasn't nearly as chatty as her grandma, who really was the one encouraging the interactions, but she was super adorable!
Then the food came.
I know that even in the US, the food that comes to you rarely looks as wonderful as the advertising pictures, but when the food creators have probably never even had a real hamburger, it causes an even greater gap that leaves A LOT to be desired!
In addition to the burgers you see, another tray came out with a chicken burger on it. So we had 5 total sandwiches: 3 burgers with pineapple as ordered, one hamburger with cheese and one chicken burger. When Tom tried to clarify his order and said that he had ordered the onion rings and fries, the man explained that the text below the picture said it was a chicken burger and a hamburger. Somehow we should know these things, I guess. So Greta ate the chicken burger (which, we are learning is always the way to go here in China) and the rest of us ate one burger. We left the last one because that was about all that we could stomach. I ended up eating the plain burger with cheese because it had the least amount of mayo on it (which I strongly DO NOT care for here) but I also ended up with the rubber cheese. Trade offs, I guess... But hey, we got gloves to eat them with because they don't provide napkins AND we got to eat in the ambiance of Uncle Sam! It all made us feel right at home eating "American" food.
One thing we have learned is that if the food isn't good, the entertainment about the food always is!!!
By the way, just now, I translated the onion rings/fries image and Google tells me it says:
"Eat a set meal"
"Signature Burger"
"Cheese Cow Burger"
"Pineapple Chicken Thigh Burger"
In fact, both of those hamburger pictures shown above translate to "Chicken Thigh Burger". And yes, with closer inspection, not only are they stolen pictures, but they are not even from the same burger joint. The onion rings and fries image surely is stolen from Utah because there is fry sauce. (Allen MacBean could make a killing here, if they actually paid for it!) Pro tip, Darcee, make better use of your Google Lens. What you see is NOT what you get!
And clearly there are no cookie company lawsuits over here!!!
Glad you could have a "taste" of home
ReplyDelete