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Because I can't read Chinese characters, it is hard for me to know what the fifty dishes are on the menu. I basically eat maybe the same ten dishes over and over again because they are the ones I know the names of. Sometimes I will learn a new dish if someone in the room is eating something delicious looking. Then I will use the pointing method of communication and have the waiters write the name down in my book.

Yesterday, a table was eating a green salad with pickled little florescent green peppers. We don't really like the pickled flavor of the peppers and so I tried to use my language skills to ask for the salad without peppers. The boss and waiters looked at us strange. "What if we add these bigger different peppers?"

Not wanting to risk a dish that was too spicy to enjoy, we said, "No thank you." We felt proud that people understood our Chinese and that we were getting a plate of salad without peppers.

They shrugged their shoulders, probably thought, "Crazy foreigners," and brought out a HUGE plate of pepperless cilantro salad. Oh... the salad was cilantro? From the distance it looked like a different Chinese salad.

Ever eat a whole plate of raw cilantro?
We did.