My father was not a Michelin man.

我父親不是米其林評審。

He ate with the instincts of someone who had grown up between two food cultures and understood that the best version of a dish rarely announces itself. His parents brought the flavors of mainland China to Taiwan, and somewhere in that inheritance he developed a palate that could hold 東坡肉 and a humble bowl of Taiwanese beef noodle soup with equal reverence. Dumplings in every form, boiled, pan fried, fried, steamed, were not a preference but a devotion. 小籠包 was its own category entirely.

他吃東西靠的是本能。他在兩種飲食文化之間長大，深知真正好吃的東西從不張揚。他的父母將大陸的味道帶到了臺灣，在這份傳承裡，他練就了一副能同時容納東坡肉與一碗臺式牛肉麵的味覺，兩者在他心中地位相當。餃子是他的信仰，水餃、煎餃、炸餃、蒸餃，什麼形式都好。小籠包則是另一個單獨的世界。

He kept a small treasure chest. Not metaphorically. A box that looked like something pulled from the bottom of the ocean, the kind a child imagines when someone says the word treasure. Inside were business cards from the places that mattered, and handwritten notes for the ones too humble to have cards. For those he made his own, marking what was good and exactly what to order. A personal map of everywhere worth remembering.

他有一個小寶箱。不是比喻。是那種看起來像從海底撈上來的箱子，小時候聽到「寶藏」這個詞，腦海裡浮現的就是那種樣子。箱子裡裝著他去過的那些值得記住的地方的名片，還有一些小店的手寫便條，那些地方太小，沒有名片，他就自己做，寫下好吃什麼、點什麼。一張屬於他自己的地圖。

He told me about it from his hospital bed.

他是在病床上告訴我這件事的。

I have been thinking about that box ever since. About the instinct behind it. The understanding that a meal worth having is worth recording, not for anyone else, just so you can find your way back. These reviews are my version of what he kept. The places change. The impulse is his.

從那以後我一直在想那個箱子。想的是藏在背後的那種本能，一頓值得吃的飯，值得被記錄下來，不是為了別人，只是為了有一天能找到回去的路。我寫的這些，就是我版本的寶箱。地方在變，但那股勁兒是他給的。

A few weeks ago I was sitting at the top of a mountain in Vietnam, sweating through a work retreat I hadn't thought much about, eating a bowl of pho I hadn't planned on.

幾週前，我坐在越南一座山頂上，汗濕了衫，參加一場沒想太多就去了的公司團建，吃著一碗沒有計劃中的河粉。

The view was the kind that stops you. And my dad was there somehow, the way he gets sometimes, in the steam, in the thought that he would have loved this, in the instinct to remember it.

那片風景讓人說不出話來。父親就在那一刻出現了，像他有時候會出現的那樣，在熱氣裡，在那個他一定會愛上這裡的念頭裡，在那股想要記住它的衝動裡。