You can eat bamboo?

Okay so I had a really cool experience last night. My mentor and her husband along with their two friends brought me to another country. It is named Flushing, Queens. I have never really had Chinese food ever because I always refused to eat it when my family got it when I was younger and I guess that has always been the case, until last night. First we went to this "mall" kind of thing, which had acupuncturists instead of salons and herb stores instead of clothing stores. We went to their "food court," which consisted of 20 or so round tables all packed with asian- oh, I forgot to tell you that I was the only caucasian in this mall. All of the signs were in different dialects of Chinese with very if any small english translations under them. We walk up to this hole-in-the-wall noodle stand I am watching this very small television at the front of the line that is replaying an episode of some "places you have to eat-thing" on food network and it was all about how amazing these rice noodles supposedly were and how you couldn't get them anywhere other than China- it was pretty cool. So they ordered me something that I still have no clue what it was. All I know it was on top of rice noodles that were amazing (I ate it tonight)- very spicy, but amazing. So after we had this little venture to have some take out for me to try tonight we went to another take out place on the main street and they had bamboo? I never knew you could eat bamboo. Well, I had to try it and it was amazing! Supposedly it isn't as good anywhere else so they told me not to be disappointed if I tried it and didn't like it at another place. So we got bamboo for takeout and at this point I was confused. Were we going to eat this takeout or what? So we walk down the street and we get a table at this restaurant. This restaurant is a very different restaurant. It had no table clothes, just round wooden tables that you would see at a school chili cook-off. The place was packed! Again, I was the only caucasian and no one seemed to want to speak english. So we sit down and I look at the menu: fried frogs, lamb intestine, lamb stomach, lamb liver, live fish- served to the table ALIVE so that you can do what you please with it (where is PETA?), jellyfish, and live shrimp just to name a few. I told them I was up to try anything as long as it wasn't living when I ate it. So they ordered everything in Mandarin and I had no idea what we were getting. But, when it came... it was soooooooo good.

First course:

Fried whole fish. Yes, I ate this, but I supposedly left a lot of the good stuff- that's right, they ate the head.

Second course:

no one really told me what this was, but it was good.

Third course:

bamboo... it was soooo good

Fourth Course:

This was a rack of lamb? Or at least it was their version. It was covered in different seeds and spices that I have never tasted before- very good.

Fifth Course:

Pork, cabbage, and these noodles that were transparent. This was definitely my favorite.

Sixth Course:

This was the weirdest taste of them all. It was their version of goat meatballs in green carrot soup. Very interesting, but a very weird texture. Let's just say it was VERY fresh.

The people I was with explained to me that you couldn't get this kind of Chinese food anywhere in Manhattan, since most of the restaurants there were being run by second and third generation Chinese. Over the years the recipes change to accommodate American tastes. This results in the "Chinese-inspired" food that we are all accustomed to today. It was very interesting and very good food. I still don't think I will eat Chinese food unless I am in a similar situation.


I also wanted to include a couple pictures from the last couple days:


This is Logan (Jonathan and Cat's son) who is showing off the card that they brought me from Florida with all of the CF elementary kids "signatures" wishing me a Happy birthday- it was a huge card.


This was the night that I went to see South Pacific at the Lincoln Center- it was an amazing show and such a beautiful venue.


A couple Central Park Pictures:





A friend of mine from Sloan- Kettering with some of the cast from American Idiot- another show I saw this weekend. Let's just say it was very controversial.