The Real Eddies

Sunday, February 7, 2010

One of the great things about traveling this way is that we need to stay “home” with nothing much to do for several days. After all, our animals, our raison d’être, need us.

At home we’d have a list of things we need to do and we’d feel driven to do those things. Here, housekeeping chores are limited (and we have household help), so they take up a small amount of time.

That means we can play or be lazy without guilt.

Except for this blog, which is fun but is still a commitment I’ve made to myself, I don’t have to do anything.

So five episodes of Lost in one day works for me.

Between episodes three and four we order pizza from The Real Eddies.

If you’d asked me before we left home about what I expected from food in China, I’d have said lots of rice, seafood, chicken and some vegetables and fruit that weren’t all that familiar.

There have been some surprises, like those stacks of chicken and pork feet in the best supermarkets. There are actually many, many more offerings in the meat cases – I just can’t identify them. And on my own I wouldn’t have tasted sea cucumbers and sea intestine (many thanks to Sheri’s parents for introducing us to those).

We’ve seen more noodles on menus than I expected, and I’ve eaten about the same amount of rice here as I would at home.

Good pizza in China would have been absolutely dead last on my list.

Bernie has pizza wherever we go if it’s available, though, so last week we thumbed through the housesitter’s book and found Eddies.

There may be thousands of pizza places in Dalian. But even if we had a phone book (and what good would a Chinese phone book do us?) we couldn’t get a pizza delivered because that would require that the order taker on the other end speak English. (See where this language thing can trip you up in unexpected ways?) So the housesitter’s book is invaluable. We know someone at Eddie’s will understand us.
Shannon had mentioned that had Eddie trained in the U.S. and came back to start his pizza business.

Realistically, though, I expected a too-sweet dough and toppings that are less tomatoey and more fishy.

I was very impressed, I admit, when he asked me if I wanted thin or thick crust.
Assuming the pizzas would be small and not too filling, we ordered one for each of us – the 12” cheese and pepperoni for Bernie and the 10” taco pizza for me.

The last part of the ordering process was giving our delivery address. Shannon had printed it on Eddie’s menu in the book and had even included a phonetic pronunciation guide. I gave it a shot. He seemed to understand (wonder if it’s Eddie I’m talking to?) and I hung up with a slight hope that we’d actually get pizza.

Fifteen minutes later, there was a knock at the door and we had pizza. We are positively elated when we accomplish something like this.

It looked like pizza, smelled like pizza, but what would it taste like?
Let’s just say that I ate the whole pizza. I stopped once and put two slices in the refrigerator, but took them back out after five minutes.

Eddie’s taco pizza (number 8 on the menu) is the best pizza I have ever tasted.
So here we are on this lazy Sunday and Eddie’s pizza sounds terrific.

We’ve ordered the large taco pizza to share because I raved so much about it.
It’s hot and cheesy, lots of yummy taco meat on the bottom, great sauce with some Chinese red pepper sprinkled in – just the right amount - onions and black olives (which Bernie removes from his slices and tosses on mine).
Ecstasy in pizza.

Wonder what Mao would say about such western decadence?