" Yes, we were starving. Scott waved the menus away and we got the waiter's attention---he proceeded to order an obscene amount of food off the "real menu," which wasn't printed.
Two-dollar beers that tasted like barely fermented, yeasty water. We salivated. There was no coursing---in ten minutes plates started pounding the spinning tray at the center of the table and we fought among ourselves. Conch in a hallucinatory Sichuan oil, a nest of cold sesame noodles, a wild, red stew that Scott called ma po tofu, cold tripe ("Just eat it," Scott said, and I did), crackling duck, dry-sautéed green beans, skinny molten eggplants, cucumbers in scallion oil... "

― Stephanie Danler , Sweetbitter