Ming’s is this old Chinese restaurant on Spring Garden not far from the house, and even though it’s kind of dumpy, it’s way better than 7615 Kingsbury, so I’m not complaining. I would have died if dinner had been at our house. Ming’s is owned by this Chinese guy, Benny Ming, who wears the same blue jacket with a black t-shirt underneath and has his hair slicked back. He always makes this joke about how it’s a DA (‘Duck’s Ass’) and that they’re going to add it to the menu (‘Peking DA’). He laughs hysterical and then says, ‘Nah, not adding, just joking…same booth?’
Ming’s is pretty cool. It’s red all over and has chandeliers with red and gold streamers and fish tanks with lobsters that have their claws taped together and scenes of rice paddies and acrobats on the walls. The booths are the color of green tea and in the summer the air is always blasting, which I like. There’s also this one waitress we always get, Alice Mong, whose first name in Chinese is Ming like the restaurant. I asked her once if Ming Mong was anything like King Kong, but she just stared at me and said, ‘spring roll or wonton?’
The spring rolls at Ming’s are great. I always get the Spring Garden Spring Roll, which in the summer they call the Spring Garden Summer Roll and make twice as big. I dip it in a combo of sweet sauce and hot mustard. That’s that sweet and sour thing I was telling you about. It’s terrific, but you’ve got to get the balance just right, which takes practice. Too much sweet sauce and it’s like eating lumpy syrup. Too much mustard and the top of your head will blow off. That happened to me a couple of times. It’s not nice, believe me. Felt like somebody ripped my scalp off my skull.
Excerpt from Laura Fedora in which fifteen-year-old Richard Mercurius writes about the summer of 1976 in Philadelphia, which he spent with Laura Fedora. Order hereand start reading it today. Feature image by Chris Liverani; chandelier by Sarah Götze.
