Inside is cool and pleasantly lit, with more than a dozen plush plum-purple La-Z-Boy reclining chairs, and nondescript carpet squares a lá my cousin’s playroom circa 1978. I’ve ordered the full hour-long foot massage. Heaven!
After a good hot soak, my feet are treated to the ministrations of a young woman with a vicelike grip. Within minutes my equanimity is destroyed by this four-and-a-half foot harridan of Hulkish strength, who is working her knuckles into the tender parts of my feet in an effort to draw blood. Every time I grimace, she chuckles maniacally, grips harder and stabs again with her steely digits.
Now she’s stabbing her knuckle between my toes, causing my lip to tremble and my eyes to mist over. Apparently when it hurts, there’s something amiss with whatever body part that spot corresponds to on the Chinese foot massage sado-masochistic decoder map. Does anybody know what she’s poking at between my toes, because it’s excruciating and I’m going to go the pharmacy and get a pill to fix it before coming back here.
When she hits the tip of my big toe (sinuses, she tells me), I jump. Yes, my sinuses are bad. When she causes shooting pains below my little toe (circulation) I have to agree that my hands and feet are often cold. Then she tells me that the spot I’m flinching over is my glutuloose. I made her repeat it three times. Glue-to-looze. I can only imagine.
I discovered a few things while in the Chair of Doom. One: the body really can get used to anything; after twenty minutes or so I actually stopped feeling pain. Perhaps I’d gone into shock. Two: I am very ticklish behind my knee. I nearly took the girl’s teeth out in an actual Laurel & Hardy-like demonstration of the knee-jerk reaction.
Behind me a man is getting a neck and shoulder massage, which seems to involve a lot of pummeling and slapping noises. Courtesy prevents me from turning around to stare, but at a guess I’d say he’s as uncomfortable as I am.
Slightly unsteadily I next headed up the road for some lunch. My feet felt great, though my calves felt as if I’ve just run a marathon (they weren’t immune from the treatment). One thing I’ve noticed here is that often the names of buildings, or restaurants, are chosen to imbue the place with the characteristics of that name. For example, in Central there is the Effectual Building. I imagine it is just that. So upon seeing ‘Delicious Barbeque Restaurant’ open for business, I was tempted, but my eye had been caught earlier in the day by another intriguing lunch spot.
Upon closer inspection, Hometown Dumpling looked like quite a famous place, judging by all the magazine and newspaper cuttings pasted in the window. Of course they’re all written in Chinese, so I actually have no idea whether the place is considered good or not (one would assume so but you know what they say about assumptions).
Inside was indeed a restaurant, and there was an English menu on the table. I’m not above miming my lunch if I get in a pinch but this is easier. The other patrons, and the employees, looked surprised to see me, perhaps because the place was nearly empty.
I wanted to try some fried dumpling and some steamed ones so ordered one of each. The fried dumplings were a bit on the heavy side so I politely ate one. (Mr Miami will remember a disastrous attempt to make homemade ravioli, resulting in gnocchi-like dough surrounding the filling that I’d laboriously prepared and now could not taste for the mouth full of starchy goo).
The steamed dumplings were delicious! And there were 10 of them, TEN!, floating in a chicken broth. I thought ‘well, I couldn’t possibly finish…’ and the next thing I knew, nine had disappeared. Simply evaporated.
As it happens, I did some research and Hometown Dumpling, right there on my little road, is known for its excellent homemade noodles and dumplings, so I stumbled on a real gem. And they are particularly famous for their lamb dumplings, so I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.