In a previous apartment, in a previous neighborhood, I used to order scallion pancakes from a nearby Thai restaurant pretty frequently. These were thick and moist, cut into little squares, probably deep-fried, with crisp edges and a chewy center. I’ve never since found scallion pancakes quite like them, and in retrospect it seems clear that they aren’t the types of scallion pancakes one typically expects when one orders them. Were they scallion pancakes at all? I still don’t know. But at some point the restaurant stopping having them. This was discouraging, because anything else I ordered was superfluous, a means of meeting the delivery minimum. Finally I went into the restaurant to place my order and asked what exactly had happened that they weren’t selling them anymore. I was told that the delivery—the shipment, I should say, for the woman at the counter boasted that those scallion pancakes came all the way from China—had been delayed. How on earth were they getting their scallion pancakes from China? Had they been frozen? Was she making this up? I lost interest, felt duped.
