Sat Sept 30, 2006 Dim-Sum

Sarah

"You can't choose your family, but you can always choose your friends. So pick the best friends possible."

Earlier in the week, I sent an email to Mary telling her that Ross and his family will drive down from Huntsville, AL for his stepfather's birthday and wants to go out for dim-sum for lunch today.

"1030 is not lunch," Mary emails me.
"Think of it as brunch," I email her back.
"Somehow I don't see breakfast foods being served there," she writes back. Of course, Mary is right. No American breakfast foods were served, but Ross explained that this is what the Chinese eats for Christmas.

We are at Ocean Palace which is located on the west side of town. Ocean Palace is a massive two story building with two dining rooms - one on each floor. These dining rooms are the size of an auditorium. Dim-sum is served on the second floor today. This dining room even has a stage. You know you're gonna have authentic Chinese food when the street signs are both in English and Chinese. Last night, Rick, Gary, Mary and I had dinner with Ross at Red Lobster. All of us had the All You Can Eat Shrimp, but we can't just pass on dim-sum.

If you never had dim-sum before, it's a real treat. It's not just dumplings. This is actual Chinese food not the stuff you get at your regular Chinese restaurants. Metal carts roll by with small dishes or sometimes metal steamers. Don't worry about the language. You wave down a nearby cart and point to what you like. Dishes are served in groups of three or four except for the vegetables and some seafood. Some dishes can even be split in half. Usually the dishes are placed on a large lazy susan so everyone can easily reach what they want, but none of the tables had a lazy susan today. The food are usually made of tofu, pork, shrimp, sweet rice, rice flour but cooked in all manner of ways. Some of the dishes are similar to the Filipino dishes. There is no better combination than good food and good friends.

A good size group means more sampling. Today we have Ross, Phoebe, Rick, Kathy, Lisa, Charlie, Mary and myself. This is the first time Lisa and Charlie has joined us for Dim-sum and truly enjoyed it. Lisa was concerned if they cooked with MSG since she is slightly allergic to it. Unfortunately, they did use a little.

Everyone starts off with chopsticks. Those not as adept. Everything is tallied on your bill. We usually split the bill in the end, but Ross picks up the majority of it. Here is us outside the restaurant.

As we are driving back towards the Beltway, Charlie suddenly realizes that Lisa was right. He had lived not far from here when he was younger.

Lisa told a cute story, When the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were still hot, her son Eric had flushed a slice of pizza down the toilet. When his father Charlie asked him why, he answered that he was trying to feed the Turtles!