We forget we are parents of Chinese girls. The girls are just the girls and most days it never occurs to us they came to be apart of our family in a non-traditional manner. Certainly in Northern Virginia, there are so many non-traditional families we blend in wherever we go.
So, we found ourselves in a funny situation a few weeks ago. Many of you know I pursue culinary excellence in an Indiana Jones-like manner. Yes, I use the Post Dining Guide, The Washingtonian, and Zagat rigorously to hunt down restaurants, but I trend toward the unpolished gems in those resources, versus a Citronelle or Maestro. This devotion led us to a new (to us) Chinese restaurant in Alexandria.
On the food side, it was some of the most authentic Chinese food we've found in the DC area. We love A&J for dim sum and love the higher end Chinese fare that is popular for hosting Presidents
diplomats but the solid tastes of Beijing at bargain prices have eluded us until this restaurant.
The food was evenly wonderful, some of the dishes were even great. We were only sad there weren't more of us eating to justify tasting more dishes, we will definitely return to this place - with more people!
Now, the humbling part. The restaurant is small, with maybe only about 10 or twelve tables. At least six of them were large round tables to eat in a group of 10- which is also very traditionally Chinese. We got there around 6 pm and got a smaller table right away.
Right after we arrived, a bus pulled up and the restaurant's larger tables filled with visitors from China. At this point, we were one of two tables of diners were not Chinese natives. This attracted some attention, and the visitors from the tour bus realized we weren't Chinese but the girls were.
Then the toasting started, and the thank you's, and the pictures. We feel so blessed by the girls being ours, we returned thank you's.
I couldn't help but wonder if I were in China and ran across kids from the U.S. who had been adopted by Chinese families if I would have had the same wonderful response. Bruce and I were incredibly blessed by the experience and their warmth to us. It was humbling to be thanked for something we feel we have benefited so much from!
We said goodbye, then we drove off and once again became the typical anonymous Northern Virginia family.
