Numbing the Mouth

Last week Rachel and I went with some friends to the Red Pearl, a new Chinese restaurant in Columbia. Our server, Ben, was able to immediately tell me which dishes contained peanuts—an excellent start. Even with so many peanut allergies this is a rare trait; most of the time they have to go back and ask somebody. The entire staff taking responsibility for keeping the water glasses full was another plus. These kinds of things may not seem like much but for me they delineate good restaurants and truly professional establishments.

Several of our friends got delicious meat dishes heavily seasoned with cumin. As it turns out, the spice is numbing agent, especially in large quantities, producing a very different effect from chili peppers. Confirming cumin’s anesthetic properties by searching our collective knowledge produces some interesting results, and has been known to make users say “Oh, Google” while patting it on the head.

Friends moving to the area take note: It was good enough to make us come back with my family only a few days later. I actually made an account on Yelp so I could leave a review. Unrelated anecdote: Rachel dropped a chunk of piping hot bean curd, which I caught thanks to my catlike reaction times. Her reaction went a long way toward counterbalancing the handful of saucy tofu I wound up possessing.

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We’re moving in less than two weeks. How did this come up so fast?