“It was a drab place of five or six tables, with a bar in one corner,
a sink in another, and two large plate-glass windows.
Outside you could see beggars near the public toilet,
and Frank commented on this China—a place of dung and
diesel and dragon-ornamented rooftops and breakfast cabbage
and Mercedes-Benzes and flaking bicycle chains and brown rain
and traffic. There seemed to be nothing left of Mao
but his likeness on the currency.”
– Charlie LeDuff,
in Vanity Fair, describing the cafe in China
where 83 year-old legendary photographer
Robert Frank ate a bowl of soup.