Bike for a Burger

It’s 3pm on a Thursday. I’m at work. I’m bored. The kids are on summer schedule meaning they will stay with me on the weekends. Which I love. Which also means limited adult time. I seldom go out on work nights as one thing leads to another and I’m often too worn to be effective the next day at work. But I am feeling isolated and bored so I ping a friend on WeChat to see if he wants to go to Side Street café. Side Street’s burger just made the final four of the local burger competition. He’s in.

I leave the office at 5:30pm with the intention of taking the subway to Side Street. A car would be faster, but I try not to take cars because this city is already too crowded with them. And because I get some exercise walking. And because I’m cheap. And because it means I might have to have a conversation with a Didi driver. And it means I might have to have a conversation in Chinese which will leave me feeling like and idiot.

I don’t take the subway. When I step outside, it is such a nice day, albeit a bit warm (90F), that I decide to mobike it. Apple Maps in China is a godsend to foreigners in China ever since Google Maps was blocked. It doesn’t however have biking directions so I used walking directions, how different could it be? This is how it’s different — it took me down smaller streets which is more interesting on foot but slower on the bike. Not a big deal. The main problem was when it told me to turn, I was already past the street I was supposed to turn onto. People don’t walk as fast as I bike. So I switched to driving directions. Clearer path, big roads. This time it told me to turn when there was no street to turn onto. Apparently, people don’t drive as slow as I bike.

I made it to Side Street. My friend was sitting at a table across from his wife. My wife was working. His back was towards his wife as he was talking to two women at the table behind him. He wasn’t talking with them in a flirtatious way, as you might think us devil foreigners do, it’s just his nature to talk up to people around him. As I sat down he asked me to guess what country the two women were from. I said I wasn’t going to guess…don’t want to show my bias. He said he thought they were from India but in fact they were from Mexico. They had tried the Side Street burger, which came topped with chilli and jalapenos, at the burger festival a few weeks back and wanted to try it again.

There was a discussion about eating well. Then we ordered beer, burgers, and fries. The small place filled up. Mostly foreigners. It’s the kind of hole in the wall place we feel comfortable at. There was small talk about kids, about summer vacation plans, about some politics, about some technology. The beer arrived. It was ok, I’m not really an IPA fan and not sure why I ordered it. After a long wait from the small kitchen, the burger arrived. It was amazing, maybe the best burger I ever had. And I’ve had a few. I slowed down as I was eating it, wanting to savor every bite.

We ended the evening after two beers, which was good and meant the next day would not be a wreck. I grabbed another mobike and biked home. My path took me along one of the most popular restaurant streets in the city, known as ghost street. For the hot spots, people passed the time waiting for tables by sitting on stools on the sidewalk merrily chatting and snacking. I turned to see their smiles as I biked passed. Smiles between themselves.

Most of my friends have left Beijing and I’m back looking for my tribe. When I get home, Kobe runs up to greet me. Sabrina waves from the coach.