yum yum dim sum

Today I went on a foodventure with Amy, Jason, and Jason’s friends.  We went to Chinatown for a dim sum brunch.  I had never had dim sum, which is when very aggressive Chinese ladies try to give you small-portioned plates from their food carts.  Various carts pass by, though I had no idea what was on any of them.  Luckily Jason, being Asian, knew what to order.  I didn’t keep track, but for our group of 8 people we may have gotten 16 or 20 plates.  Some of the items included: bites of rib meat with rice noodles (I really liked the rice noodles); shrimp balls; rolls of shrimp wrapped in a rice noodle thing (in the formation of a mini burrito); tripe (pig intestines – I didn’t know what it was until after I ate it; it looked like a form of octopus and was impossible to chew); a scrumptious fried sweet bun with a meat filling; a pretty delicious steamed sweet bun with a meat filling; a yummy baked sweet bun with a meat filling; a vibrantly green vegetable called toy; and that’s all I can recall.  While I tried all of these things, there were a couple other things that I never got around to trying.  All of this amounted to a relatively cheap $11 -- considering that I ate enough for myself and my twin Igor, who resides in the tumor on my back.  Hypothetically speaking, of course.

When you leave a dim sum restaurant with your stomach about to rupture, the only natural course of action is to go consume something else, right? Because we couldn’t resist getting bubble tea.  I had never gotten bubble tea at this particular place before, which is primarily a Chinese bakery.  While I usually get the same milky black tea with tapioca pearls wherever I go, I decided to be adventurous this time.  They had a lychee tea, and since I love lychees (fresh ones, at least), I went for this one.  It turned out to be a bit more like syrup than tea, and the lychee flavor was overpowering.  I guess I was expecting milky black tea with a hint of lychee flavor.  The ice at this place was way different – it was shaved ice, but I prefer ice cubes; I enjoy hearing them clink on the plastic cup and I don’t like slurping little slivers of ice.  On the bright side, the tapioca pearls had a really great texture and the cup had adorable teddy bears on it.  The bakery had some mysterious yet delectable looking items, so I will have to return at some point and try these.  They also had really cute cakes, such as an Angry Birds cake and one decorated like a turquoise blowfish. 

Angry Birds cake