I stepped off the subway and looked around.

I knew this station.

Ghost Street.

We’d ended up here by accident our first day in China.

Then, I’d had no idea where we were. Now I knew which way to turn.

~

It blazed with neon.

People dressed as crayfish danced in front of restaurants, their oversized claws waving above the crowd.

Promoters stepped into our path, waving menus and shouting about the city’s best food.

Smoke, exhaust, and cooking oil hung in the air.

We dodged them as we walked.

“Menu, menu, motorcycle!”

A scooter squeezed between us and the curb.

Somewhere among the lights sat a restaurant called Little Sheep Hot Pot.

We knew its English name, but that didn’t help much.

Every sign around us flashed with characters we couldn’t read—some at eye level, others towering above our heads.

We walked the street once, then twice, scanning every storefront.

I turned around, hungry enough to give up, when a man standing out front of a restaurant caught Dani’s attention.

“He says they have hot pot.”

We followed him to a table in the center of the restaurant and opened the menu.

Toward the back, Dani found a picture of something that looked like hot pot and pointed.

The waiter shook his head, then pointed at a wall of text below the picture.

I pulled out my phone and aimed the camera at the page.

A translation appeared one line at a time as the waiter hovered over my shoulder.

“Six-chicken.”

“Big pig.”

“Yellow fungus.”

The rest were gibberish.

“Sure. Then I guess we’ll do those three.”

I pointed while the waiter scribbled our order in his notepad.

Then he disappeared into the kitchen.

Light from Ghost Street flickered across the windows.

Red and blue signs reflected off the empty tables.

Outside, motorcycles squeezed between pedestrians while restaurant promoters shouted at people passing by.

Inside, nothing moved.

The air smelled faintly of cooking oil.

A voice erupted through the crack in the kitchen door. Another snapped back.

Then the waiter came out, lit a cigarette, and leaned against the outside doorway.

We watched him smoke.

I turned to Dani.

“Should we go?”

Dani didn’t look up from her phone.

“No. We’re already here.”

We waited.

Ten minutes.

Twenty.

I looked toward the kitchen. Nothing.

An hour later, the waiter returned carrying a teal plastic bowl filled with lukewarm broth. A thin film of oil trembled across the surface.

She poked at it.

Six-chicken turned out to be chopped chicken necks.

Big pig was hot dogs and Spam.

At least yellow fungus was, thankfully, mushrooms.

We picked through the bowl, paid the bill, and left hungry.

~

Months later, I was driving down the highway when a familiar logo caught my eye. I squinted, then called Dani.

“Hot pot.” I said. “The one from Ghost Street. The one we couldn’t find. It’s here!”

A week later, we sat at a table while a waiter lowered a steaming pot of broth onto the burner between us. Garlic, chilies, and sesame filled the air.

Steam fogged the table in front of us.

Dani looked through the menu.

“What do you want? Garlic beef or aged lamb?”

“Whichever one isn’t the chicken neck.”