导读:休斯顿“双椒川菜馆”的夫妻肺片当选为美国年度开胃菜，菜名被翻译为“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”非常贴切。
I found myself at Pepper Twins on Inauguration Day, after watching Donald Trump take office from my Houston hotel room, spending a sobering hour in the Rothko Chapel, and then doing all I could to dispel that sobriety with a series of micheladas at a Mexican bistro named Cuchara. It’s fair to say that food wasn’t my topmost preoccupation at that moment.
我第一次走进双椒川菜馆是在川普就职那天，我先是在位于休斯顿的酒店里看了川普的就职典礼，然后在罗斯科教堂里冷静了一小时，但是之后又在一家名为“Cuchara”的墨西哥小餐馆里买醉。老实说，当时我并不怎么关心吃的东西。
That began to change as I gingerly—and then increasingly less gingerly—began to eat an appetizer called Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a more palatably named take on the classic Sichuan fuqi feipian, “lung of the husband and wife”: cold slices of beef tendon and tongue, tossed with sesame paste, Sichuan peppercorns, scallions, and chiles. I had not realized how much I was sleepwalking until flavor hit me in the face. The dish is a numbing, burning, textural masterpiece, and the kind of thing a budding empire is built on. Indeed, Chongqing native Yunan Yang (who is also involved, with her sister, in the restaurant Cooking Girl) already has two Pepper Twins locations and two more in her sights.
但是当我开始小心翼翼地品尝一道名为“史密斯夫妇（Mr. & Mrs. Smith）”的开胃菜的时候，一切都开始改变了——这个译名要比这道川菜原来的名字“夫妻肺片（lung of the husband and wife）”好吃的多！把牛腱子肉、牛舌等凉菜切成薄片，拌上香油、花椒、葱和辣椒，一道美味的夫妻肺片就做好了。这道菜的美味将浑浑噩噩的我重新拉回了现实，吃下一口你的口腔里全是麻痹、烧灼的快感，这道菜简直就是一个伟大的杰作、单凭这一道菜就能支撑起一个饮食帝国！事实上，重庆人远洋（音）已经在美国开了两家双椒川菜馆（她还和妹妹开了一家名为“Cooking Girl”的餐馆），不久之后还要再开两家。
I planned to skip dessert, but the manager, also from Chongqing, was evangelical about a favorite dessert of his, one that made him feel like he was home—creamy sweet corn flecked with red chili and enriched by preserved egg. He insisted on buying me a portion, promising that if I didn’t like it he would happily eat what was left, a trip down memory lane that I’m sorry to report I denied him. I left smiling for the first time all day.
用过餐之后我不太想吃甜点了，但是餐馆经理（同样来自重庆）向我安利了一种他最喜欢的甜食、一种让他有如身在家乡的食物——奶油甜玉米。他坚持要请我吃，还说如果我不喜欢就自己吃掉，这趟小巷记忆很令人难忘——但是很遗憾我拒绝了他的慷慨。离开双椒川菜馆时，我的脸上第一次出现了微笑。
