Chicken Paprikash

Sitting indoors in a Hungarian cafe, I ordered a chicken paprikash with Nokedli, choosing to look at the man at the next table instead of at the menu offered me. I chose the dish because it was laksa-coloured, orange and red and complete with translucent oily film bubbles dotting the surface. I ordered it even though it was 30 degrees outside, too hot for a stew.

Because I was expecting something, I was disappointed. The dish came. I ate a bite. The colour of laksa had tricked me into letting my want for sour spiciness run unchecked. But the chicken in my mouth was bland, the deceptive liquid kickless.

I wondered if what I felt was very remotely similar to what rich first-world people feel when they buy counterfeit items while vacationing in third-world countries. And then I wondered where that earlier thought had come from. It didn't make sense, like the colour of the chicken paprikash stew.