"We are unavailable to take your call. Please leave your message at the sound of the tone. Beeep!"
"Hey, it's me. WAAAYYYYKKEEE UPPP!! Helooooo?!?!"
" Dayam woman, why you always be yelling in mah phone?"
"Hey, it's me. WAAAYYYYKKEEE UPPP!! Helooooo?!?!"
"
"We're getting food."
Pen: "Yo, are we getting 2 or 11?"
Mo: "Oh...2."
Pen: "That looks like 11."
5 minutes later, Pen peers over the menu, erases Mo's marks and writes in '2',
Pen: "Sorry dude, it just looks like 11...holy shit!"
Nim: "Wha?"
Pen: "Did you see what Mo wrote 11 by?"
Nim: "No."
Pen looks up evilly and smiles at Mo.
Pen: "I'm glad I changed that, cause 11 of those would have been EXPENSIVE."
Mo had put two line marks next to the 'Shark's fin soup dumplings'
Welcome to our day of lardassery. Mo and Moward recently worked tech for me; and also were my impromptu therapists as I spent several nights wanting to cut the heads off of actors. As a present (or 'positive reinforcement' as Jessiera put it), I took them out for yum cha. After throwing around a couple of ideas, we finally decided on the newly reopened Far Eastern (which used to be the old HK Restaurant on Geary). So we invited our frequent dim sum buddy, Nim, along for the meal. We've also gotten into the habit of eating around 10:30-which is actually not too bad at Far Eastern-where all the treats are made according to order instead of being wheeled around on carts. Some places don't even bring out the good stuff til 11 or 11:30 when they are the most busy, when they roll with the carts.
"My grandpa had a saying. Going to yum cha and ordering cha siu bao is like going to Baskin-Robbins and getting vanilla."
No pictures-too busy eating. heh heh. We had: the aforementioned shark's fin dumplings, siu mai, ha gow, cha siu bow (the white man ordered this), lo mai gai (sweet rice in a lotus leaf), black bean spareribs, dan taht, steamed egg custard cake, stuffed eggplant, shrimp chive dumplings, beef cheong fun, gee bow gai (foil wrapped chicken), fried dough puffs with mushrooms/pork/veg, beef meatballs, xiao long bao, black sesame filled mochi, and a bowl of miscellaneous innards. Oh! And fu jow. CHICKEN FEET.
Nim told me this awesome story about how in college, he once brought some fu jow home and then stuck them in the back of the fridge where he promptly forgot them. Cut to two weeks later he is back at UC Santa Cruz. Nim picks up the phone to incoherent but banshee related screaming out of which he can only make out two words, "MONKEY TOES!" Turns out, his mom had been trying, futilely to find the stench wrecking havoc on her fridge. She found and opened the box of fu jow, now engorged and fuzzy where they had started to mold, and recoiled. The only sense she could make out of it was that her first born child had joined some sort of whack Asian cult where they store and devour primate digits as a ritualistic oriental initiation. Just kidding, Nim's mom isn't racist-she's just not used to opening up a box of moldy chicken feet in her fridge.
Back to eating. The standards were up to standard-hot, juicy, tasty. Is it just me, or was gee bow gai ALWAYS spicy, or did it just start getting that way the last couple of years? I wouldn't count any standouts here. Golden Gate is still the best for dan taht. Shanghai Dumpling King is still better for xiao long bao, the miscellaneous innards didn't taste clean. East Ocean in Alameda makes better egg custard cake. But bitching aside, the food was passable. And I don't often see the shark's fin on a ton of menus. The other disturbing thing was that at either end of the dining room was a large screen HD tv-showing New Year's celebrations from Sri Lanka or Singapore. Which involved inserting what looked like metal arrow fletches into the top layer of flesh in a decorative style. Gross! Not the best thing to be watching while eating; luckily the Chinese have iron wills and stomachs. And a great propiety for active detachment when they're eating.
Afterwards, we stopped by a local comic book shop on Geary. Cards and Comics Central.
I was duly impressed by: a glow in the dark Darth Vader bobble head, a convertible Yoda pillow, the ludicrous amounts of anatomically impossible anime babe figures and the overall size of the store. I bought a peek-a-Pooh. Nim bought some Super Mario apple candies which he promptly had to dispose of when he found out they contained aspertame. Mo bought stuff for the Bean.
ahha: review from Yelp
I had no idea that places like this existed. The comics, sure, I've seen that, and the pokemon and sports cards, OK, fine. The action figures go along with that, that makes sense. What really blew me away was the back room, where the unlicensed games of Magic: The Gathering happen on long card tables with seedy, dangerous looking teenagers. Man, do not mess around with these games. They will CUT you. For serious.
Pen: "Wow, it's totally weird that even the music they play hasn't changed." (it was some version of KFOG)
Cards and Comics Central
5424 Geary Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94121
415-668-3354
Far Eastern Restaurant
Geary & 17th (look for the seagreen awning)
Pen: "Yo, are we getting 2 or 11?"
Mo: "Oh...2."
Pen: "That looks like 11."
5 minutes later, Pen peers over the menu, erases Mo's marks and writes in '2',
Pen: "Sorry dude, it just looks like 11...holy shit!"
Nim: "Wha?"
Pen: "Did you see what Mo wrote 11 by?"
Nim: "No."
Pen looks up evilly and smiles at Mo.
Pen: "I'm glad I changed that, cause 11 of those would have been EXPENSIVE."
Mo had put two line marks next to the 'Shark's fin soup dumplings'
Welcome to our day of lardassery. Mo and Moward recently worked tech for me; and also were my impromptu therapists as I spent several nights wanting to cut the heads off of actors. As a present (or 'positive reinforcement' as Jessiera put it), I took them out for yum cha. After throwing around a couple of ideas, we finally decided on the newly reopened Far Eastern (which used to be the old HK Restaurant on Geary). So we invited our frequent dim sum buddy, Nim, along for the meal. We've also gotten into the habit of eating around 10:30-which is actually not too bad at Far Eastern-where all the treats are made according to order instead of being wheeled around on carts. Some places don't even bring out the good stuff til 11 or 11:30 when they are the most busy, when they roll with the carts.
"My grandpa had a saying. Going to yum cha and ordering cha siu bao is like going to Baskin-Robbins and getting vanilla."
No pictures-too busy eating. heh heh. We had: the aforementioned shark's fin dumplings, siu mai, ha gow, cha siu bow (the white man ordered this), lo mai gai (sweet rice in a lotus leaf), black bean spareribs, dan taht, steamed egg custard cake, stuffed eggplant, shrimp chive dumplings, beef cheong fun, gee bow gai (foil wrapped chicken), fried dough puffs with mushrooms/pork/veg, beef meatballs, xiao long bao, black sesame filled mochi, and a bowl of miscellaneous innards. Oh! And fu jow. CHICKEN FEET.
Nim told me this awesome story about how in college, he once brought some fu jow home and then stuck them in the back of the fridge where he promptly forgot them. Cut to two weeks later he is back at UC Santa Cruz. Nim picks up the phone to incoherent but banshee related screaming out of which he can only make out two words, "MONKEY TOES!" Turns out, his mom had been trying, futilely to find the stench wrecking havoc on her fridge. She found and opened the box of fu jow, now engorged and fuzzy where they had started to mold, and recoiled. The only sense she could make out of it was that her first born child had joined some sort of whack Asian cult where they store and devour primate digits as a ritualistic oriental initiation. Just kidding, Nim's mom isn't racist-she's just not used to opening up a box of moldy chicken feet in her fridge.
Back to eating. The standards were up to standard-hot, juicy, tasty. Is it just me, or was gee bow gai ALWAYS spicy, or did it just start getting that way the last couple of years? I wouldn't count any standouts here. Golden Gate is still the best for dan taht. Shanghai Dumpling King is still better for xiao long bao, the miscellaneous innards didn't taste clean. East Ocean in Alameda makes better egg custard cake. But bitching aside, the food was passable. And I don't often see the shark's fin on a ton of menus. The other disturbing thing was that at either end of the dining room was a large screen HD tv-showing New Year's celebrations from Sri Lanka or Singapore. Which involved inserting what looked like metal arrow fletches into the top layer of flesh in a decorative style. Gross! Not the best thing to be watching while eating; luckily the Chinese have iron wills and stomachs. And a great propiety for active detachment when they're eating.
Afterwards, we stopped by a local comic book shop on Geary. Cards and Comics Central.
I was duly impressed by: a glow in the dark Darth Vader bobble head, a convertible Yoda pillow, the ludicrous amounts of anatomically impossible anime babe figures and the overall size of the store. I bought a peek-a-Pooh. Nim bought some Super Mario apple candies which he promptly had to dispose of when he found out they contained aspertame. Mo bought stuff for the Bean.
ahha: review from Yelp
I had no idea that places like this existed. The comics, sure, I've seen that, and the pokemon and sports cards, OK, fine. The action figures go along with that, that makes sense. What really blew me away was the back room, where the unlicensed games of Magic: The Gathering happen on long card tables with seedy, dangerous looking teenagers. Man, do not mess around with these games. They will CUT you. For serious.
Pen: "Wow, it's totally weird that even the music they play hasn't changed." (it was some version of KFOG)
Cards and Comics Central
5424 Geary Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94121
415-668-3354
Far Eastern Restaurant
Geary & 17th (look for the seagreen awning)
4 comments:
POOHISEVIL!He strips the skin from other creatures and wears it as his own. BEWARE!!!
ahah! yes, yes he does. all in the name of sweet sweet Asian girl cuteness domination. KAWAIIII!!
What, you got a problem with Vanilla?
(Damn you Blogger, damn you!)
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