Thanksgiving Hot Pot

About a month before thanksgiving, Dr. J and I talked about cooking together for thanksgiving on the phone. This year, I wasn't planning to tag along with anyone's thanksgiving so if I wanted to eat turkey with gravy I knew I had to get it somewhere... I knew how big the turkey was and how nasty it can get to clean the turkey... Dr. J told me she was going to hang out with Hiroko for thanksgiving so I couldn't really plan for thanksgiving with her any more. There was no way for me to prepare everything by myself (even with Ian's assistance, lol). On the day of thanksgiving, I was still not sure if I wanted to cook turkey or not. That was when Ian told me that his parents had bought all the ingredients for Chinese hot pot. I had no objections, hehe. I don't have to cook! What is better, I get to enjoy delicious Chinese food and warm up with the soup, mmm. They had tons of shitake as you can see as brown spots in the pot. I also enjoyed king oyster mushroom, cleaned intestines, shrimps, radish, Chinese cabbage, fish and beef balls, beef as far as I can remember. Cantonese soup is normally very light. It was perfect for a hot pot. I loved how the mushrooms were making mushroomy juice as I took a bite. The radish sucked all the goodness from the soup. Beef balls were very flavorful but not greasy at all. They had tendons with the meat. Cooked shrimps were mildly sweet. I did not need any sauce for them.

Oystered beef!

It feels like I haven't posted in a while, actually I just haven't eaten anything worth talking about. I tried something new again today though! I ordered randomly from a menu today and ended up eating beef with oyster sauce.
I don't think I've ever had oyster sauce before so I thought it would be quite a new taste, but really it didn't taste very different to me than the other sauces that are used at most American Chinese restaraunts, it just seemed a little salty, like soy sauce. All in all the food was ok, but nothing amazing, probably because I went to a not very good place to get it (Not much is open late at night by my work. I'll try and eat something worthy of a longer story and better review soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMECO!!! (A bit late on the blog, but I already told you on the right day =)

Suggestions of others

I am not very good at expanding my food horizons. I am somewhat of a picky eater, so it's hard for me to walk into a restaurant and pick something random on the menu to try something new. In the cases where I really want something new, I depend on recommendations of others. Saturday was that sort of day. I went to a Chinese restaurant near my work that is decent (it's hard to beat Yau's and Joy's.) But I didn't want the same old stuff I usually get. The menu at this place is actually very small, but there are many things I hadn't had yet. Nothing really stood out to me as something to try though, so I asked the person who worked there to pick something for me.

I have discovered that this is actually an interesting thing to do, because obviously people working there won't expect it. I was kind of worried about asking because I don't want to put people on the spot with that sort of thing, but I had had conversations with this particular worker before and felt a little more comfortable asking her. In the end, she suggested Chinese-style kung pao chicken. It was great, and distinctively different from the American-style. This actually opened a whole new idea to me, I had never thought of asking for Chinese-style versions of dishes at restaurants before. I think I will do it more often! Of course I need to find out which dishes actually have a Chinese-style first.

OSU Chinese Restaurant

I decided to go back to Ohio for the weekend. My friends were asking me to pick a restaurant for lunch--of course, we were already talking about food. I thought of Sushi Ting, which serves decent Japanese food near campus. But, I couldn't do without Yau's. Hiroko and Naoya used to go there often. At that time, I thought it was just too far away from M-Castle. Once I tried the food there tho, I got addicted to it. With the construction of Ohio Union, Yau's was one of the few decent Chinese places close to campus. Since we went there more than once a week, Yau's was like our home towards the end of my last year at OSU. Like Kris mentioned, I have some favorites there. One is Chao Gui Dew. The ingredients are a mytery to me too. I like different kinds of meat and the wide rice noodles in it<3 Although it is spicy, I can never get enough of it. Another one is Mushroom Ginger Pork! If I haven't mentioned, I am a BIG mushroom lover. If I am looking upset, please offer me some mushroom. That can make everything better. Anyways, I did a bad job of taking a pic of mushroom ginger pork. I got more rice than mushroom, lol. This is a kind of dish you want with plain steamed rice. I thought it was a lot but I ate the whole thing without trouble;P. I have mushrooms and pork. I can try to experiment and find out the recipe for the light sauce. I think it has soy sauce, salt, rice wine and oyster sauce but I could be wrong. Chinese food seems so easy but yet hard to make it right!

If I had more time, I would have gone to a lot of places tho. I shall write down a list of places I remember off the top of my head:
Sushi Ting
NorthMarket
Pat Thai
Happy Greek
Akaihana
Japanese Steak House
Minga
Japanese Oriental Restaurant
Cazouela's?
Taj Mahal
Sunflower
Waffle House:)
Hoggies
Mamma's?
Yum Yum Tea?
Rally's
Buckeye Donuts!!
Lee Garden
Northstar Cafe
Some other Chinese places I don't remember the names of

Lunch with Mameco!!!

Mameco came all the way from New York just to have lunch with me! Ok, she didn't come just for me, but I can pretend. We went to one of the best Chinese restaurants on campus, Yau's Chinese Bistro. Usually at Chinese resturants I have no idea what to order, so until I am more comfortable at a restaruant I usually go to my regular standbys: moo goo gai pan, and General Tso's chicken. Moo Goo is actually one of my favorites, but it seems hard to find resturants that actually have it, so General Tso's is a "safe" dish that at least I know what I'll bet getting. However, in the case of Yau's, a month or so ago Mameco told me her favorite dish: chao gui dew. I tried it and it was very good! So on this magical meeting of the food friends I had this very meal!

The exact contents of chao gui dew are a mystery to me. I know there are bean sprouts, pork, noodles, shrimp, duck and onion. but I'm not sure if there is anything else thrown in there that I missed. I am wondering if it is maybe the type of dish that is personal to the chef, because the first time I had it, there was pork sausage instead of pork, and also this time there was egg, which I don't remember being there before. Either way it is a delicious and spicy dish that was designed to be eaten by me!

Mameco! I just realized, we took pictures of the food, but not US together with food. I demand a do-over! You have to come back so we can do it right!