tai duo le

yesterday, again, I went to have lunch, sans chinese speakers. This time however Rachel and Patrick were with me. Rachel decided that she would have noodles on her own, in order to save space for the welcome dinner we were to have that night. patrick and i decided we could get a light lunch at a table. of course, we were wrong. having learned from my past experiences, we decided to keep it simple, and work with the point and say "that" method. we began to order exactly what they were eating next to us. then a university english student came up and tried to help. she confirmed to us that we had indeed ordered the two dishes at the table next to us, then asked, "fish is their specialty. do you want fish?" Patrick and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, as we are wont to do in those situations. So I said yes, and she asked how big. We said small, mindful of our welcome dinner that night. I heard her say to the waitress xiao, which means small. The student then asked if we wanted soup, and we answered with an emphatic no, including words, vigorous head shaking, and exaggerated hand motions. our food was ordered, and we waited a long time for our three small dishes. then the first small dish of fish came out. it was about a foot in diameter, and four or five inches deep. we knew we were in trouble at that point. we were enjoying this delicious, spicy dish, when our other two dishes came out. these looked about the size of something you would for a light lunch. finally, the soup came out as well. we did our best, but at the end, it didn't look like we had touched the dishes at all. patrick took out his rough guide phrasebook and looked up the right word: "tai duo le." too much. i think our waitress understood what we were saying.