SnackTAYku International: Dim Sum in Trinidad

Your life mission should you choose to accept it: Visiting the Chinatown in whatever city or part of the world you’re in and eating your life away at a dim sum house.  Oh… that’s just one my ridiculous life missions? Yeah well, perhaps you should consider making it yours too.  Life is just so much better with dim sum unless you’re allergic to shellfish.  If that’s the case then never you mind what I said.  That aside, for some reason I never ate dim sum when I lived in Trinidad.  I have no idea why that is but I knew that upon my visit a few weeks ago, I had to correct that misgiving.  As it turns out, fellow TAY’er and O-Decker, Supergeek, recently found a Dim Sum house where he lives in the Netherlands.  Well, oh.  Snap.  It’s Sunday, SUNday! Suuunnnddaaay.  And here’s your SnackTAYku International Main Event - Trinidad vs The Netherlands Dim Sum Battle.  FIGHT!*

Happy H1's Day!

Happy St. Patty's Day to all!

On this day, everyone should be celebrating H1's day unless you would like to be given the evil eye.  Such is the fate I met this morning when I needed to be reminded that I had not wished her greetings today.

It was scary for me.

Anyway, everyone's a little bit Irish on St. Patty's Day! This is why we spent our day eating St. Patty's Day Dim Sum.

What's that? You find that sentiment ridiculous and not very Irish of us?

If you don't think about it too much, it makes perfect sense.  Plus I'm hoping the lot of you are so drunk from your own bastardizations of St. Patty's Day activities that every thing I say is a sensible green... Green like the money you're about to give me.  Hooray!

...

If you are reading this while you're sober then please enjoy these dim sum pictures I took at our trip to Aberdeen, a dim sum house located in White Plains.  They're expensive as all hell and it's not the best dim sum I've put into my mouth but they're decent and close enough for me to keep visiting.  I may have spoken about them in the past but I can't recall.

Pork spare rib tips (upper right), soup dumplings (upper left), shrimp dumplings and a pot of tea.  Figure out which is which from that! ...

One Week, Two Chinatowns - Part II

Had the N train not decided to run like rubbish on Friday morning, the trip to Brooklyn would have not taken the extra half an hour longer than it did.

The extra half an hour really cut into our dim sum eating time! But, now we know it can easily be done and East Harbor Seafood Palace is within reach for future jaunts without having to drive to Brooklyn in a mini-van with which to both embarrass and kidnap Beetchie.

The entire day was hit with snafu after snafu.  Beetchie unfortunately got food poisoning, and could not partake in the dim sum feast.  We almost did not see her, actually.  We also forgot that Alex was not eating meat on Fridays during lent, and all the pork I ordered did not go to waste, but there could have been more and/or different types of pork on the table.

Also, being super late led us to not having the luxury to relax, take pictures at leisure or do any such thing.  It turned out to be a really long day.

Spare rib tips were excellent here.

Brooklyn, Now With Condensed Milk

I'll have you know that not all my adventures in Brooklyn end up in mayhem.

As demonstrated by my last visit, sometimes my visits end up with $1.00 dumplings, and yesterday? Dim Sum.

If there is one thing beautiful in this world, it is Dim Sum though that is somewhat of a misleading statement on my part.  Not all dim sum are made equal but that's what fun about it - the Adventure to find Great Dim Sum.

I am a firm believer that H1 is up to that challenge and I too, strive to find those joyful little offerings.  Wherever I may go, I must go to that area's Chinatown.  It's a life goal of mine, indeed.  It sounds hard but someone has to push forward!

How else would I have known that rose water flavoured dumpling skin paired with J-curry dumplings was not the best thing that side of Japan?!

I travel a hard road sometimes and sometimes, the road less traveled will lead you to better dim sum houses.

Which takes me back to the story at hand - Brooklyn.

 We went there: East Harbor Seafood Palace!

What do you get when you pile 4 Hos, 1 HP and 1 P in a mini-van and drive them from Suburbia to the Real Streets of Crooklyn?

From Saturday to Friday: Too Much Adventuring! Part I: Carts and Carousels

Last Saturday, I cornered myself by a good idea.

My brain spurted out: Let's go to dim sum and then to the MoMa!

My mouth was quick to follow.

H1's ears were within reach of brilliance and jumped all over my plan.

That was on the Tuesday of last week.

By the time Saturday came around, my will to move which always leaves me by Friday night was still in full effect come the next morning.

Unfortunately, H1's will to move and desire to eat dim sum was not.

So off to dim sum The HOchieS went.

Spontaneous Trip to Chinatown

On Friday, we made a trip to Chinatown on a whim.

I find it disturbing but I'm beginning to think that BooHead's Asian is just not that 'strong'. I don't know where his love of dimsum is hidden or if it even exists.

Who could not love this?





The second disturbing mess was this thing that I made here on the table. Surely this was not my finest moment but can anyone guess what was swimming in goodness and then rolled twice on the table? Come on...guess.



The most disturbing mess is that either we got cheated at dimsum or their prices went WAY up. I don't know what that's about but I'm blaming the presence of Ant. on that one.

That was fun for us as well as getting ice-cream from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory stand located outside Pershing Square at Grand Central Terminal.



While their vanilla was good and peaches and cream okay, it's still not the greatness of the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.



Currently listening to: "Devin" by Kenji Ito, from the Saga Frontier Original Soundtrack; and "Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio.

Making Christmas (Part I): Chinatown Friday

As I write this, it's actually December 10th even though I started this post on December 6th. The HOchieS had a very full weekend past, with Day-Off'ing, Chinatown'ing, Baking, Decorating and doing Christmasie Christmas'ing.

On Friday last, Sons and the HOchieS trekked off to Chinatown for some Dim sum. I think I have to make it a tradition of making the Dim sum trip to take pictures of the Chinese Christmas display at Golden Bridge and well, to eat Dim sum of course.

The dim sum was extremely good on Friday and I saw things I never saw there before. I was rather impressed and tried to take decent pictures for once. Umm, that didn't happen. Clearly it's due to my lack of photography skills but I'm still trying and learning. I think H1's got a better eye than I but does she have a Camera Eye? Hmmm...

Cart Love -



OMG, here come the meats:



H1 and her good "Camera" Sense, for taking pictures of babies and now beef & pork:





What?! It was a first for here! Juicy pork dumplings?! Oh, how disappointing - the juicy bit leaked out...ah well. They were still stuffed with piggyh bliss:



The display was quite festive this year:



I particularly enjoyed the Santa:



After the eats, we headed to where the cool kids go. Sadly, Soul Eater Volume 2 figures were not out yet so I couldn't buy my beloved Stein, but we did do some Christmas Shopping for Momma HOchie, some kids and I got H1 a present. That reminds me that I need to take that from her so that I may wrap it up.

It was a fun but busy day that ended after we went to the grocery to buy ingredients for the two day bake fest which we'll discuss in a Part II blog post.

Memorable Conversation of the Day:

Sons: We're the only non-Chinese people here.
::later on:: Or 2: Oh, there are some white people over there. The Chinese people put them in the corner - out of sight. No one puts baby in a corner!

Currently listening to: "Heaven's Dead" by Audioslave.

A Summer Shot or Two and Some Eats

Let's go back to the before time when Chrissy Lee was here and then to last week when MC was here.

Here's a shot CLee and I took on one of our jaunts to Midtown. This thing was sitting outside Rockefeller Center. It's a pretty cool thing and has since been removed:



People, we gotta be like Kayne. We gotta be like that guy who is being like Kayne:



Here are some pictures I meant to post sometime ago but well, laziness is a hell of a thing I suppose:



Ah yes, the things I will do with chicken feet. Victory!



Ah yes, the things I will do with crab gundys. Victory x 2!

And now for some of our favourite Indian Sweets:





OMG, you people see that right? It's Parasad in a box! Microwavable! It's damned amazing.



Khurma, yum.



Jillabee (umm, yeah, H1 I was displaced so I can't spell)



Gulab Jamun, my favourite. Mmmm.

This just makes me think that H1 and I should celebrate Divali this year by making stuff. Let's plan, H1!

Currently listening to: "Seabeast" by Mastodon, and "The Queen Ant" by Tsuyoshi Sekito, from the Brave Fencer Musashiden Original Soundtrack. Still one of the best game and soundtracks, eva'! They should port it to the PSP or the DS. I'd play it again, for the 4th time.

August 1st - 4th

The world has not yet ended even though I was of the camp "the world will end once that atom smasher is turned on!". Considering that I am unsure if it has even been turned on yet will probably have you believing that I did not really think a Black Hole would form and sucks us all down. That may be partially true but only because the Discovery Channel told me that Operation Impending Doom III was set to begin in 2012, so that's the date I'm going by really. The Discovery Channel never lies! That's probably how long it'd take that Black Hole to form anyway...

In the meanwhile, the HOchieS have been enjoying the company of Hochie favourites - Beetchie & Alex, with Frass and MC tagging along. Heh.

On Friday, we went to see The Dark Knight. It was quite a good movie and as Batman should be but it made me sad to see Heath. It's not as if I loved Heath when he was still with us but I didn't dislike him either. Seeing him with all his finite lines and creep behaviour just makes it all the more tragic.
Other than that, Gary Oldman was fantastic but not as fantastic as Frass and I keeping an eye on MC and Alex to ensure they were not sleeping (as both are notorious for such things) and sure enough, within the first five minutes MC had fallen asleep.
And it was during a bank robbery! What the eff.

After getting out of the theatre early with a date of 5 PM for dinner, SOME people were starvin' and needed to get food earlier. Since we were to meet Beetchie for dinner, we decided to go to Applebee's for some mini-burgers, wings and drinks.

This was followed by Pongsri which as always was a fun time with good eats had by all. I had about a million quotes to add to this but can't remember any of it. We're such messes.

Saturday proved rather crazy. I almost made Frass hate me for life (which I'm sure he does already but maybe had this gone the way it could have, he would hate on me with intent to destroy). I did not have my phone on me, so I missed his call telling me that he was on the 11.45 train. I only got that message at 1.40, which means he would have been waiting at the train station for an hour for us to pick him up. It turns out rain saved my ass by falling so hard and fierce that it flooded the tracks and he was delayed for an hour extra. So while my ass was saved, his was napping on the train. All in all, it worked out for all parties involved.

Beetchie and Sufi showed up an hour after the potential debacle with a box full of baos and a bag full of crabs with gundys not secure. Well, those crabs were rather entertaining especially the one that was super fiesty:



We rocked the Rock Band, had patties, jerk chicken with rice and peas and chatted. Oh yeah, and there was a huge fight over some molten lava cake between Sufi and Beetchie that I tried to stay away from but it was near impossible since the fight spilled over right into Sunday afternoon.

As a treat for the Oxymorons, The Oxtails completed the World Tour and are now in the Hall of Fame. We went in lookin' like whores being mostly unclothed and ended up purchasing threads for the Apocalyptic "future" and ummm, feathers. I now have a jellyfish microphone and Beetchie has a gas mask. I think she may have been trying to tell me something but I ignore her.

Monday morning saw the eating of dim sum with Beetchie, a pepper flake that got stuck in my throat and a long uneventful day at work after that. Ah well.

Now I'm back to how my August months usually are - boring.

I hate August.

Currently listening to: "Spiralling" by Keane. Uhhh, okay, I was SO not expecting this bad '70s + '80s Sound AT ALL. Wow. and "The Escapist" by The Streets. If this song is any indication of what the new The Streets album is like, I might have to take Mike Skinner's advice and push things forward by getting someone else's album; and "Midna's Desperate Hour" by Koji Kondo and Toru Minegishi, from the Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess Original Soundtrack. This game was damned nightmarish!

Chinatown on a Rainy Wednesday

The gaggle (H1, Alex, X, M, and Or 2) went down for dim sum today in good ol' Chinatown. Beetchie was sorely missed and this isn't a post to make her sad. That objective was supposed to be fulfilled in the post prior to this one.

It was dreary, the subway was effed as per usual and a trip to the Brooklyn Bridge just ruined my post earlier this morning when I said I can't go there without Beetchie.

Apparently I cursed us.

Dim sum was rushed and the HOchieS left feeling a little bit unhappy about the whole deal (Trudging to work knowing you'll be staying until 7.20 at night is also no fun but alas, it had to be done).

For the first time ever, the HOchieS feasted upon something we've eaten quite regularly as children but never at dim sum because we always feel that the space that item would take up could be filled by other things we don't get on a regular basis.

What is this "thing" you ask?

That's right, it was none other than good time chicken feet. Due to the fact that our gang was not asian looking, we were discriminated against and fed the 'sauced' up version as opposed to the boiled goodness we're used to. I guess they figured they were doing us a kindness or figured we would waste their precious fatty legs and toes.

It was quite good though, regardless.

The usual suspects were inhaled, with some hilarity over noodles that could not not be eaten before leaving Golden Bridge.

After our particularly cheap eats of $33.00, a price that impressed H1 immensely, we hustled (but not really) down the street to buy some baos and pastries and hop on the train.

It was at this point I saw my favourite friend in the entire world, in all his hammy glory.

It was a rather depressing sight. I did not get the picture that made me a little bit revolted and I regret not getting the shot of the pig being hauled around the streets of Chinatown on a man's shoulder.
Camera Eye got it, but not L.O.

Currently listening to: The theme of Monster playing in my head.

A Note For Future Reference

Dim Sum + a 3 Hour Nap, make for some ill times.

Don't do it again.

As a side note, I'm feeling rather manky.

The Tokyo-Ho Japan Chronicles - Day 3

Day 3 - Tuesday, May 29th



We'll call this day the Great Yokohama Piggyh Adventure.

Sure we did other things than this but this was by far the most memorable thing that happened to us that day.

And so the story goes...

We went out to Yokohama and before entering Chinatown there was this Arcade. It was the first real one we had seen, so we went in after 9 AM to hit up some Taiko Drum Master (which is my new favourite game and at least, the one that was most fun at the arcades) and to test our hands at some UFO Catchers.

For 100 yen, we managed to grab one pig from the second row of white and black piggies and out came tumbling that pig dragging 6 others with him! It was hilarious. There were pigs all over the ground! My head hurt from laughing so hard and we made our escape from the Arcade, with two bags of pigs, a previously obtained gloomy bear, and a monkey, with the girls working at the arcade watching us slink off like dirty criminals! But hey, Beetchie won those pigs fairly. Ah, they must have hated having to re-arrange that UFO Catcher Machine.

We then headed to the Doll Museum. It was cool yet scary as expected from a Doll Museum.



::shudder::

Also, I now have questions as to who "Licca" is (not that crazed scary betch in the picture above) as she seems to be the Barbie of Japan.

Our next destination was Chinatown. The problem with this Chinatown was that while it was the dirtiest part of Japan that we had seen and would see for the entire trip (yes, even the fish market was cleaner), it was still not at the level of NYC Chinatown dirt, taking away a vital feeling of what makes Chinatown what it is.

The other thing missing was the people on the street trying to sell you CD/DVD or Louis vitton on the sly.

As far as we could tell, there were no Chinese people in Chinatown but if they were, they were all speaking Japanese. It was very odd.

Also, the Chinatown in Japan has seen it fit to bastardize pandas. They've been exploited by trying to make them marketable. Save the Pandas! By buying some useless panda junk!

Here's that damned monkey in a panda suit:



But like our Chinatown, there's a tiny section in Chinatown that some Europeans have called home. It's not Italians but Ukkers. Ah, Ukkers. I was happy to see them.

Our last stop to that day took us to a residential area not far from a busy train station where we scared some kids and made them nervous as they hurried off to their parents. We were actually a little bit lost trying to find the Ramuen Museum.

Ah, Ramuen Town. It was shady and a re-creation of a dirty little ramen-serving town with multiple ramen shops. It was small but cool and quirky. Beetchie loved it plenty.



The WTF Moment(s) of the Day:

1. I don't know what's up with that Hokkaido Mascot and its relation to Ramuen but yeah. That thing was obscene.

2. WTF's up with the 'u' in 'ramuen'? I need to wiki that.

The Casualty Count:

1. The little sumo guy I bought Beetchie fell off her bag and almost lost to Yokohama. Fortunately, due to his large ass in red sumo undies, I managed to spot him on the grey ground but he, ::sniff:: sadly lost an arm.

2. Beetchie's virtual puppy that she could not walk and later was attacked by a larger dog. Let us all have a moment of silence...



Things We Observed This Day - Volume III

1. Those goddamned Japanese bicyclists are crazy! Many times did my life flash before my eyes.

2. Licca, unlike Barbie, has had many man whores. Ken's got nothing on her.

3. I can't slurp ramen. 10+ years of ramen eating habits could not be broken in 2 weeks, no matter how polite in Japan it is to slurp.

The Day's Eats:

1. That weird breakfast with a not fully cooked egg, kielbasa sausage, salad, seaweed, miso soup, and rice. The even weirder breakfast that Beetchie had. It's not the fact that she had grilled salmon for breakfast with rice, it was the natto that made it not so good. She has now deemed herself Nattofan. It was god awful but she says that activating it was fun.

Let us all be revolted by the following picture:



2. Pork ramen from Ramuen Town. Oh that was greatness.

3. Dim sum in Chinatown. It was not the same as dim sum here because there are no carts zipping around but there are set meals that have lots of dumplings, gyoza and shumai. I was not too impressed by those dumplings because I have to say curry should never be in a dumpling. At least they were nice to look at. Stupids! I'd rather have a happily filled stomach than happy eyes when it comes to food!

4. Shumai on a stick. Mmmm. Street shumai.

5. Absinthe and a 'cranberry'/vodka combination that actually turned out to be a 'grapefruit' juice/vodka combination. Much like the T-shirt and tie combination, it wasn't that impressive. I probably should have thrown a hissy fit but they were so sweet, how could I?

Currently listening to (as I revise the draft): Man of Mystery by MUSE.

MF'ing Snakes on a MF'ing Lei

The day started with dim sum with X, her family and her friend. It was as always, good times but no muppet sightings were made.

And the day ended with our being at this funky new to the area speciality chocolate restaurant called Max Brenner at Union Square. Anyone who is a chocolate fiend will thoroughly enjoy this place even if it is a little pricey. Go forth and eat chocolate by the Bald Man.

And now the in-between:



Snakes on a Plane was as expected. It's as fun as the people you go with if they're into ridiculous things and know not to take the movie seriously. And all my friends are ridiculous and that's why I love them and that's why we had a blast. Unfortunately only the Giant Kitty and Beetchie could make it with me (Battler, I missed your ass...).

Can I just say...I loved that one snake who was so enthralled at finding the pheromone-induced lei that he spent the entire movie curled up in that lei, playing happily like the kitty was before kitty went all dead-like and eaten.

Memorable quotes & Har Har Moments from SoaP:

"I'm tired of you feeding me this garbage!" Har Har with the red bull can.

"Time is Tissue."

The miracle of pencils that sketch pictures with colour. I wish I had one of those... everybody on that mf-ing plane had one of those mf-ing pencils.

Quote of today:

"SF is such a Sombrero de Culos!!" - Mitch *Connors*.

Currently listening to: "Elevator" by Hot Hot Heat.