Yeah, so I’ve sort of become a tad dependent on Walmart pizza. I discovered it a couple weeks back nestled right next to the freshly steamed Bao Zi (steamed bread stuffed with meat) and it’s become nearly a daily thing.
It’s a sad fact that I have absolutely no motivation to cook for just myself, and with Maggie working until 9 o’clock most nights, it leaves me scrounging for easy to prepare dinner. Pizza, with no surprise, has become the answer.
At 7.90 RMB a slice, it’s not the cheapest thing you can buy for eating here, but it kicks the pants off a plate of jiao zi (dumplings). Now, you may be saying to yourself… “Walmart, pizza? Wha?” And if you are, talking to yourself is a sign of mindloss, don’t challenge the pizza – ya nut.
It should be explained that Walmart here is 50% home goods and 50% full-on supermarket, not the 70/30 ratio that they were/are in Canada (at least when I left), so when I say “pizza” I mean oven-baked goodness, not frozen in a box stuff or anything of the sort.
Honestly, it’s great. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve not had real pizza in so long the Chinese versions are starting to be alright, but I had pizza at the local Pizza King a few months back, and have had it various other places since getting here and it was always startlingly craptastic. Maybe we just have to admit, Walmart can do things right.
Maggie, after asking what I ate for dinner the other day, gave me a flash of her qwirky smile and exclaimed, “Again!?” To which I very proudly pointed out that I’ve eaten Chinese food for in around 400+ days and no one says “you ate Chinese food AGAIN last night…” Honestly, don’t get between me and pizza.
Now sitting here with a glass of wine (2 bottles of not hot, but not bad, Cab Sav for 36 RMB) and the pizza I have to reflect on the fact that I very definitely went to Walmart today NOT to buy pizza. I recognized early in the day that I was going to have the now all-too-common challenge of deciding for myself what to eat, and made the resolute decision to lay off the stuff today and settle for the more traditional (and equally convenient) bao zi. However, the pusher that she is, the woman selling the pizza conned me into getting not just my regular two slices, but she threw in a third free to sweeten the deal. She took one look at me and knew my “jin tian wo bu yao xie xie” was about as valuable as an yi fen note ($0.0014).
Meh, pizza and wine… really, I’m not going to beat myself up over it.
