Working Sunday

Naomi and I had to work at the New York Booth today. Working on a Sunday is never fun, but at least I get to work with Naomi, which I haven't done in a while. To make it all better, we decided to go for a tasty lunch away from the booth during a lull in between interviews.

Since Naomi is now Vegan, we walked around until we found a Vegan Chinese Food Restaurant she had been to before, Buddha Bodai.

We decided to share our meal and we began by some delicious vegan dumplings. I went all out and had them pan fried instead of steamed.

Then we went for the General Tso's "Chicken" and some white rice.

This meal was DELICIOUS. I'm running back here the first chance I get - the general tso was not too heavy, the "chicken" was the perfect consistency, and all is right with the world after you eat this meal.

We rushed back to work to find that our afternoon interviews had been cancelled - which wasn't that big of a deal, since I had to go to midtown after to buy some things. Not a bad working sunday after all.

Friday Night... Just Got Paid

Ida and I decided to spend Friday night in Times Square and we began by visiting the Grand Sichuan again, (Times Square location). This one is tiny tiny, and sits hidden in Restaurant Row.

We began with tiny tiny spring rolls

which we paired with some tsingtao beer

My entree was a very hot (as in caliente!) cellophane noodle with cabbage and tofu soup.

It was okay - I expected the soup to be less... soupy. Ida had a chicken version of her chili beef plate, but that had a weird aftertaste. I was less impressed with this Grand Sichuan than with its sister on the East Side - I guess that in their effort to fit in with the rest of places in Restaurant Row they lost some flavor or something.

The funnest part, however, was opening our fortune cookies. The top one is Ida's.

After dinner Ida and I walked through the drizzle and the crowds to make it to Empire 25 where after some handwringing and some begging on my part we ended up watching the Footloose remake. First, we arrived early, but still the theater was emptier than I expected - it's Footloose people! I enjoyed it. The main actor guy, reminded Ida and I of a young Johnny Depp. The guy that play Willard was hilarious. Sarah Jessica Parker was replaced with a bi-racial cutie. It's the dance movie that defies all the rules of dance movies - which might've been why Ida didn't like it as much. But also because Footloose is less a dance movie and more a "teenage rebellion, but backed with sense." I mean, there's domestic violence, drug use, an awesome line where Ren tells the baddie that "only assholes say the word fa**got," religion freedom and respect, but also, some good dancing. Sure, it's just as campy as the original, but they took it seriously in my opinion: kept the parts of the original that everyone would've been angry if they had changed (Let's hear it for the boy - amiright?) but adapted it enough to the times that there were more black people around (not enough Asians and Latinos, but first steps, ya know,) and hip hop was included just as well as country music and the lovely 80's songs we remember singing along.

And that I did, with Ida just laughing at me as I danced my way out of the theater. I'm looking forward already to owning the "two in one" DVD where you get both versions. P.S. I'm glad Zac Efron pulled out of this thing: as much as I like the kid, I don't think he could've pulled this off.

Home Depot! Home Depot!

In search of Beef with Chili, Lil Boo and I made our way to Grand Sichuan Eastern. I think its technically on the Upper East Side, but barely escaping Midtown East. I had found it through some internet searches the week before and had confirmes by calling them that they did in fact, have crispy beef.

We arrived early, the first of the dinner crowd, and were very excited about the possibilities. We ordered Veggie Dumplings to share.

For my entree I had fried tofu Mai Fun.

In hindsight I realize I should've taken a picture of Boo's Guinzo Beef with Chili, because that has been the closest we've ever found it. Good thing that she went with her instincts and ordered spicy rather than crispy. It was delish. She ate more than I've seen her eat in months. I felt like an over bearing mother, pushing food on her.

The only thing is that at the beginning they took their sweet time bringing our dumplings, and other people were eating before we were, even though we arrived first. Plus, I was going to be bad and order a beer or diet soda, but they never asked me if I wanted a drink! And I needed to feel persuaded.
Regardless, the meal was goodness and close to reasonably priced. Afterward while walking to the subway we passed a Home Depot, and since Boo had never been we went inside to have us a fun time, specially while looking ay floor models of kitchens, bathrooms, etc. We found convenient items to purchase, and felt very lesbian.
Not bad for a Monday Night.

The dangers of listening

Our first day of Listening in Charlotte, North Carolina. We're working at a Children's hospital for the next three days and a lot of the stories we've heard so far have had to do with parents losing their children, or young children coming over to talk about what it's like being a patient.

I have not been professionally prepared for this. Every time I work I realize that I am not a trained psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker. I'm just a regular ole person with Degrees in English and Writing and I'm not sure I know how to handle all of this information.

Today, I've chosen to be as detached as possible. You can't be detached during the conversation, of course, because you need to be present when people are sharing their stories. But how to handle all of the stuff I'm taking in?

After work, I wanted to handle it by going to get fried Chicken, but Susan didn't want to do any meat after the fest that was Mac's. We ended up making our way to Beijing Chinese Restaurant so that we could gorge on Tofu.

Had some fried veggie dumplings to begin with.

As my main course: Ma Po Tofu with white rice.

Not the best Chinese I've ever had, of course, and I know some of you will be like "really, Chinese food in North Carolina?" but it fed the hunger, and the Tofu did feel good after all that meat.

To finish, my cookie fortune

which marked not only the very first "fortune telling" I've ever received from a fortune cookie, but also the first time I actually read the word fortune in one, so I was very fortunate and happy.

Last but not least, blurry pic of downtown Charlotte building

Of Rainy Days With Tons Of Food

Thursday found me working in the Chinatown area of Flushing in Queens, NY. Although I had packed my Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, it felt like a crime to be there and not have some Chinese food, so during lunch hour Carolina and I walked a couple of blocks til we found Sunway.

The place was very clear and spacious, with Ikea like furniture. The menu was HUGE. The only hard part about it is that even though all items were in English  (and I have no idea if it was Mandarin, Cantonese, what) there were no descriptions of the dishes. I latched unto the idea of Soupy Noodles (they have a whole section) and basically just asked the waitress if there was anything with thin noodles in soup with tofu and vegetables. She hooked me up with some fried tofu dumped in soupy noodles and veggies and this is what I got:

Ah yes, I forgot to mention, you also got complimentary tea with every meal, which was perfect on a rainy day. The soup was huge and delicious and it was hard not to inhale the entire thing. My co-worker had some un-soupy noodles that were to die for as well.

We finished the meal by having pan-fried vegetarian dumplings for dessert

They were perfect. And Hot. And I kinda liked that they brought things as they were ready - the soup and the noodles were done first, and the dumplings last.

Later, after the workday was done and I braved the madness that was the 7 and the E trains during the evening rush hour, I found my way to another part of Queens: Forest Hills. There I visited sweet Cesar, who in true Gay Fashion was holding a dinner party.

Since we were all busy having fun eating and joking with each other, I forgot to take pictures of the food. We had, however, short grain rice with gandules, and pernil with a green salad. It was a very simple yet delicious meal. Afterwards we helped our hosts flip their mattress (I'm not kidding) since the thing was a gazillion pounds and it took about 5 of us to carry it. Having worked off our meal we retired to the living room to enjoy the fire and the company of Idina Menzel, Cesar's puppy.

Eventually it was time to head home and Cesar was kind enough to give three of us a ride. However we took a detour on our way to Bed-Stuy, and stopped by Japanese Restaurant Miyako in Williamsburg for some dessert. My flash wasn't working so I'm sorry for the picture darkness. We had red bean and green bean fried ice cream with tea

and deep fried banana with whipped cream

I was very proud of me in that I only had a taste of each. They were tasty, though!

Rain and all, the day was pretty great. It makes me wish I had a car - despite the traffic in the city, it's kinda great to go home and not have to wait for trains and get to enjoy some loud music as we drive.

Searching, Searching

Didn't leave for dinner until 7:10 - Should've left earlier and then I wouldn't have missed Glee! But, we left at 7pm looking for Ultimo Taco somewhere in Brownsville. It had been highly recommended to us, and since we're used to relying on good ole google, we didn't ask for the whereabouts. Oops.

We headed for Downtown Brownsville first, figuring there we'd find Ultimo or at the very least some other restaurants. But the Downtown area was more of a commercial place. We drove and drove and next thing we noticed we were literally at the Mexican border. Since neither one of us carried passports we turned around and searched and searched for Ultimo Taco. We finally found it, hiding behind a Jack in the Box. Looked like a serious "real" place - but they didn't have anything that seemed suitable for a vegetarian so we continued to drive around to see what else we could find. Enter Asian Buffet.

I was a little apprehensive... I'm not really the Buffet type. I was ready to eat some cooked-five-hours-ago Lo Mein, but was extremely glad to find that they had a grill... you brought in the raw ingredients for them and they'd make you happy. It was kinda like a cheaper less sophisticaded version of Mongo's from MN. I got me some cellophane noodles, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, pepper, with delish soy sauce, spicy sauce and garlic. Much better than I expected indeed.

However by the time we made it back to the hotel, Glee was over. I guess you win some, you lose some. Let's see what Brownsville brings us tomorrow!