Two days ago, JosephE wrote a comment on our post on Mei Jia Deli with the idea of letting the Missus do Her own post. What a great idea! And I think we found the perfect subject – Dezhou Chicken from 101 Noodle Express. Fasten your seatbelts, here it comes………Heeeere’s the Missus!
Driving West on Valley Boulevard after lunch at Mei Jia, shaved ice in hand, I suddenly spotted the sign "Shan Dong Dezhou Pa Ji", which instantly brought back memories of growing up in QingDao, Shan Dong, China.
Back when I was a little kid, we were all pretty poor, according to America standards at least. But we didn’t know any better since everybody had the same things, which were not much. We were just little kids running around naive and happy. Head over heels about Andy Lau, The Shaolin Temple starring Jet Li, and stuff like that.
The refrigerator didn’t become a household item until about the mid 1990’s. Before that, we all needed to stop by the open-air market daily. Streets were blocked up for vendors to set up their stands, one next to another, running over several blocks. Most of what was sold was homegrown or homemade, and each vendor specialized in only one thing, either one type of vegetable, or fresh made tofu, or some kind of fruit. Bargaining is not only to be expected, it is required, beyond just a game, it is an art of its own. It is common for people to spend 5 minutes to bargain down an item saving just 5 cents and walk away with a bunch of green onions worth about 12 cents. Such a victory always brought great joy.
There are also livestock, mostly live chickens, cooped up in a pen, ready to be picked up. For a young man trying to "wow" a perspective girl’s family, nothing is better than arriving with a big, live rooster in hand, upside down bound up around the feet. It always brings a smile from the future in-law’s face. No wonder avian flu often started in Asia! Then again, I never got any food borne disease when I was growing up, no E-coli, no listeria, no hepatitis. I was as healthy as a country bumpkin should be, right along the "growth curve" which we didn’t have in China back then.
On the other hand, everything is always fresh. Fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, fresh killed pork hanging upside down with a seal of approval of blue ink promptly displayed. The Butcher’s greasy apron, the vegetable sellers muddy hand identified the preferred vendors. Meals are prepared daily, my Grandmother would get up before everyone else to prepare breakfast, then lunch and dinner while working full time as a School Principle.
There were Government grocery stores, selling mostly soy sauce, vinegar, or oil, and other rationed items. One of my Aunt’s worked in one of those 7-11 sized stores. She always smelled like a marinade mixture of soy sauce and vinegar. When in season, there would be piles of tomatoes, napa cabbage, or blue crab running sideways along sidewalk all directions at the same time, in that situation, my Aunt would spend most of her time running after those crabs than really selling them. And nothing is more entertaining to a kid with not much toys ( I was not deprived as a child though, I have everything everyone else did if not more, we were considered pretty well to do in the neighborhood).
Well back to this Dezhou Chicken thing. I really don’t know where Dezhou is or why this chicken is so famous. The only thing I know is that it tasted so good, and I remember exactly where the little shop was that we usually got the chicken from. It was always a special treat, a once or twice a year type of thing. Chicken was rare and expensive back then.
OK, the little shop that sold this chicken was located at the beginning of the market which was right down the hill from where my Grandmother’s house was. Tucked behind the vegetable vendor, in a dark little room, the chicken was sold by this dark little man, after you ordered, he would bring out one of the dark little chickens soaked forever in the dark broth in a big iron pot behind him, and hand it to you. The chicken was small, not like the enhanced double D in the States, more like A and a half. The most delicious part are the legs. The bone will slide right off the meat. The meat is dark and full of 5 spice, soy sauce, sugar and wine flavors. The meat is not mushy and tasting like dead meat. It is firm and has a slight chew to it. A family of 10 usually will share one chicken and I often dreamt of having one all to myself. My own neck to knaw on.
Since I moved to States and I haven’t seen nor thought about this chicken for more than 15 years. Now you see how excited I was when I saw this sign.
My chance at last. A good husband as Kirk is, he made an immediate U-turn in the middle of the busy Valley Blvd ( not all that unusual in Alhambra). We had to buy a chicken and they’d better not run out of it, as it was all I was thinking about when I walked into the restaurant. It was a typical, actually a much cleaner eatery, than the norm in the San Gabriel Valley. I was so excited I started ordering in English and the Girl gave me a baffled look. I had to slow down and order in Chinese. It was $8.70 for half a chicken ( still not cheap), for a contorted, dead yogi style half chicken in a Styrofoam container. By the way, the contortion is part of the style. We Chinese know how to maximize space, like twisting the chicken into little balls or squeezing 1 billion people along the east side of a Country.
Back to this chicken, the color is much lighter, the chicken is bigger than a whole chicken was in China, and the taste, while pretty good was much lighter than I remembered. The flavor was not as condensed or as hearty. Still, it was very good. Kirk, on the other hand, didn’t think much of it and I don’t blame him. If I never had this kind of chicken, I probably come to the same conclusion.
In conclusion, I was disappointed in the chicken, but that didn’t dampen my spirit at all. I became wordy and giddy, called my Mom and I could tell she was brought back to those days in China as well. Maybe it is not the chicken I was looking for. Maybe it is something else, like the feeling of having nothing, but still desiring nothing, extremely content, always feeling like the richest kid on the block since I had everything I needed or knew to desire. No desire, therefore no disappointment.
Now go and find your Dezhou Chicken!
101 Noodle Express
1408 E. Valley Blvd
Alhambra, CA
, which I purchased on my visit to 
