Sauce for the Coolie

When jaded appetite and flat wallet demand food that is at once exotic and inexpensive, the answer is Chinatown. From plush oriental trappings, reminiscent of a tong-war movie, to a chrome and linoleum decor, Chinese restaurants provide all setting for your meal. Prices are standard, staggered between $1.50 and two dollars, and the menus vary little between the different places.

Of course, the primary requisite for truly suave Chinese eating is the use of chopsticks. With five minutes practice, nearly everyone can finish a meal with chopsticks his first try. The food really tastes better, too, because the chopsticks, made of dry bamboo, leave no metallic taste. And since the food is placed on an individual bowl of rice from the communal bowl, various sauces soak the rice, leaving an exciting composite of tastes.

And one should achieve full benefit from the sauce of Chinese dishes, since that is the essence of their charm. Observe, for instance, the mainstay of any Chinese meal, shrimp with lobster sauce. On a base of shrimp, the dish features lobster sauce, made of pork, egg, cornstarch--for body--and a gentle hint of garlic. Naturally, this recipe varies with each restaurant, the only constant factor being the absence of lobster as an ingredient. The flavor is delicate, mingling the bite of garlic with the pork's meaty savor. Excellent with rice, the sauce can readily serve as an order in itself, but when combined with some seafood, it seems to gain flavor.

As the most solid dish in a meal, some form of beef should be eaten. Either with pea pods or bean sprouts, the sauted slices of beef have a rich accompanying oyster sauce made from an extract of oysters and imported from China. The contrast between crisp green vegetables and tangy cooked meat is both delighteful and surprising.

And for contrast with the generally salty content of the meal, there should be an order of sweet and sour pork. Chunks of pork, deep fried in a light batter, are covered by a sauce of sugar and vinegar, producing a sweetness laced tingling tartness. Although it lacks the body to stand as a separate dish, the sauce is also excellent with rice, and after the pork is gone, makes a fine semi-dessert.

Finally, there should be some sort of vegetable. Chel Shar Din is a favorite of many. It consists of diced vegetables, such as celery, water chestnuts and bamboo shoot, mixed with bits of fried pork for flavor. Actually, though, any place of mixed greens will do admirably.

This is but a sample menu, to give the beginner confidence in ordering a basic meal. Each new Chinesegoer will want to expeliment for himself, educating his tastes to include steamed fish, abalone, and squid. With chopsticks firmly clutched, and the soy sauce at hand, anyone can rapidly acquire a professional veneer, and the process is both easy and pleasant.