I Will Take You Down to Chinatown, Focker

I think that New York City was not the only place to have lovely warm weather this weekend, so I hope you got to enjoy it as much as I did! Yesterday, the boyf and I met up to wander around Chinatown. You may or may not know that I spent a year teaching English in northeast China, so I like to tool around this area of the city every once in a while when I'm feeling nostalgic (here is the blog I kept during that year, in case you're interested to know what Inner Mongolia's like...and be glad you're not there in the wintertime).

First, we stopped at a little dollar dumpling shop on Mosco St. These little joints are a dime a dozen, but Fried Dumpling tastes pretty authentic to me (I learned how to make similar dumplings during my year abroad), so I chose that one for the boyf's first dollar dumpling experience. I don't have a photo, unfortunately, for reasons I don't really feel like getting into on a food blog, but suffice it to say that our experience was a little too authentic, even for me.

For me, no trip to Chinatown is complete without a stop at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, so we picked up a scoop of my favorite flavor, Zen Butter.

A glorious combination of peanut butter and sesame flavors. Any of you New Yorkers reading this, go now! It is a zen experience for sure.

Here is the Odwaddle with our confection. Actually, I guess he should be called the Fung-Wah-dle, in this context...

Anycream, we also had fun nosing around Hong Kong Supermarket, which always makes me wonder why I would ever have worried I wouldn't be able to find my favorite Chinese treats in America. In fact, there is a far better selection here than there was in any grocery store I had access to in Tongliao! Here is some produce porn, for anyone so titillated:

Hey there, sexy...

Yeah Chinatown! Every time I go, I vow to return more often for cheap and delicious veggie-filled eats, but it just doesn't happen as much as I'd like. Oh well, there's always oatmeal.

Smooth segue, right? I'm trying to convince the boyf of oatmeal's many magical joys, but this will take some time. Don't worry, I can feel him starting to crack - I'll have him converted sooner or later. This is what went into two servings of boyfriendly oats this morning:

• 1/2 cup steel cut oats (cooked in 1.5 cups water)
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
• 1 ripe banana, sliced
• spoonful of vanilla Chobani for 'frosting'
• ~2 oz blueberries
• ~2 tbsp sliced almonds

Not a bad start, eh? To be fair, however, since we did breakfast my way, we did lunch his way. What way is that? The tao of Chili's fajitas, grasshopper! (Sorry, we watched The Karate Kid last night.)

I chose the steak and portobello fajitas, which were pretty incredible, actually. The steak is really nicely done and comes with a tasty chimichurri topping along with the pico de gallo.

"You're all right, Larusso. Good match!"

[Fade to black.]