Restaurant factoids.

The other week at the (Thai) restaurant, this (young) (professional) (30-something) (Chinese-from-China) couple came in for a late lunch, and they had never eaten there before and wanted something fast, and wanted my recommendation for an appetizer.

"I would order the crab rangoons," I was like.

"What are crab rangoons?", the bespectacled and slightly moustached guy was like.

"They're wontons with cream cheese and crab, deepfried," I was like. "They're served at Chinese restaurants here, and it's an American food that I think began in California."

"Oh, Chinese-American," the elegantly-dressed lady was like, intrigued.

And, they ordered them.

"They are good, and they are so beautiful, this way they look," she was like, later, when I asked her about what she thought about the crab rangoons, referring to the way that they're crimped at the top.

And, since I had read the Wikipedia history of the crab rangoon after I had initially talked to them, I explained that it turns out that they're actually part of an American post-World War II obsession with the South Pacific that began after soldiers returned from those areas, and was reflected in things like popular music and tiki bars.

(They had never heard of tiki bars.)

And, I said that it seems that they were invented at such a South Pacific place in California, but spread to Chinese restaurants more broadly, afterwards.

"Oh," they were like, interested.

My one professor friend who studies (modern) (Czech) literature also told me once that massaman curry is her favorite (Thai) dish, and that it actually comes from the word "Muslim," so sometimes I tell that to customers, too, when they order it.

And, I don't claim that it's true, only that a professor friend who's a "word nerd" told me that.

People don't know how to react to that one.