I thought I’d share my lunch with you.  Well, a picture of my lunch, anyway.

Steamed squid with some kind of spicy sauce.

It’s not the kind of thing you’d usually associate with Nebraska, but here it is, anyway.  It’s not expensive. Buffet, with plenty of less tentacle-y options to choose from. Tentacles and mac and cheese.

The clientele is just about everybody. The entryway is a community board for Asian immigrants (mostly Korean and Chinese, but on a good day, you can find some Hindi) and the rest of the world sends people as they become available.

 

I like to watch people learn languages, and working in this particular restaurant is set up more or less as an immersive language-learning experience. It’s an effective one, at that. The newest guy is the one who clears the plates and refills the drinks. And there’s a script. Slightly formal.

There are levels of fluency, working up to the woman running the cash register,  the guy I’ve seen advising at multiple restaurants, and eventually–a restaurant of your own to manage. I never really looked into how that works in Nebraska, but I think of it as community financed ownership. Something in the line of giving the next guy a leg up. (Business financing in Chinese immigrant communities actually is interesting. Research that.)