Here's another post that kind of got buried underneath a shit load of other posts. The day we got back from our SF trip, we went straight to my nephew's bday party at one of the local parks. I also had a dinner engagement with the ultra cool Food Ho of the deliciously named blog, The Pork Porn Pages, her husband the Food Pimp, and the super knowledgeable and always fascinating KirkK from Mmm-Yoso. And also, my husband Bert was able to join us in our food orgy...Kirk's wife, in absentia, was kind enough to call in some special orders ahead of time. You know, they're down with the owners and all. More details on some of these dishes here courtesy of Kirk's blog.
Because Kirk was here, we got cold appetizers. Sorry I don't know the name of this in Chinese, but this was some sort of meat jerky, flavored wit 5-spice.
Here's another shot of it without the flash.
This was also part of the cold appetizers. Kirk called this "husband and wife". There's bamboo, beans, and peanuts here. I forgot what the greens were. I want to say mustard, but correct me if I'm wrong Kirk.
This was one of the dishes that Kirk's wife ordered. It must be ordered way ahead of time because it is quite time consuming to make. The pumpkin dish is #129 - Steamed Whole Squash with pork. It's a kabocha squash that's steamed and filled with pork and garnished with green onions and cilantro. You can see the shininess of the plastic wrap around the pumpkin.
Can you see the bits of pork? I really liked the tenderness of the squash.
#327 Stir Fried Beef with Pickled Mustard Greens. This wasn't so great. I didn't really like the pickled flavor but I was a good sport and tried a bit of this.
This was another dish that she pre-ordered for us. It's not on the menu either. This is a corn dish(Sweet Corn with Pine Nuts) which was really quite rich. According to Kirk, corn kernels are battered with duck egg yolk and deep fried. You could really taste the egginess in here. I also liked the saltiness of this dish, but be forewarned, if you eat too much of this, you may get full too quickly. This dish is a bit heavy, being fried in egg yolk and all. And yes, you can really taste the difference between regular chicken eggs and duck egg yolks in this dish.
#424 Hot Pepper Prawns. Oh hell yeah - this is a favorite of mine. You can eat the Szechuan peppercorns! Go ahead! Bite 'em! Let the heat spread over your tongue and numb you up. Forget about Novocaine, just chew up some of this shit instead. And if you're feeling adventurous, eat some of those chopped dried red peppers too. You'll really feel it immediately and also a few hours later. But it's worth the pain!
Another item ordered was :#143 - Fish Filet in Hot Sauce. I've had this twice previously and liked it each time. In fact, if I could choose my favorite dish of tonight, this would be tied with the Pepper Prawns. The fish in the hot sauce looks dangerously spicy, but it's really not. The fish is also pretty soft and just melts in your mouth.
Lastly, no fkg fortune cookies! We got the beans/rice dessert! If Kirk wasn't there, they probably would have given us the fortune cookies since we weren't Chinese and/or weren't in the know. This is supposed to calm down your stomach. I didn't really like it the first time and cased on its mucousy properties. After that meal we just had, I welcomed it and ate most of it. It really did seem to soothe my stomach.
Even though we had loads of fun visiting the Bay Area, we were glad to be back in San Diego! It was a long ass day - driving home from OC, then going to the picnic, then cleaning up at home...Then coming here....Plus it was super hot today too. Looking forward to another outing at Ba Ren!
