Dim Sum Jam Sunday

Happy Valentine's Day!

Team Mia met up with Gracie for Crumpet's first ever dim sum experience. Our original destination was Jade Garden. Since it was too crowded we went to Four Seas - home to our favorite frying table (where they fry fresh dim sum tableside). A very enjoyable experience for us all.

After we ventured down to Uwajimaya, the gigantor Japanese/Asian food market and its neighbor bookstore, Kinokuniya. After stocking up on the usuals (halibut, bamboo shoots, baby corn, straw mushroom, fish sauce) I ran into Kaoru in the sauce aisle. Karou is on her way to vacation in Germany, France & Monaco so I guessed she needed some snacks for the trip. I seized the opportunity and asked her to give me a lesson in Japanese sauces. Well, what followed was 6 hours of lavish & eccentric lectur on the esoterics of Japanese sauces that went something like this:

Ku - so what's this sauce?
Kaoru - it's just like Ponzu, but different.
Ku - different how?
Kaoru - it's the same fruit but smaller, taste the same but different
Ku - O-kay, what about this sauce
Kaoru - it's called Naoya sauce
Ku - why is it called Nagoya sauce and what does it do?
Kaoru - because it's from Nagoya and you can use it on anything
Ku - OK - but I see it has 3 different labels, what's the difference?
Karou - well, that depends on the hierachy of your official position and the lineage of your ancestry

Anyway, I bought the Nagoya suace (the one with the black label) and 5 other ones - used the nagoya to make grilled halibut later (w/t ponzu & wasabi) and it was delicious. Also made white miso soup w/t carrots & chestnuts.

Just to complete the Japanese experience we watched THE CAT RETURNS on Netflix. Like all Studio Ghibli films this one deals with the experience of growing up of a teen girl and the imagination just soars without the cheesy, leaden wisecracks you get from Disney & Dreamwork movies. Bonus feature - see if you can recognize which character is voiced by Cary Ewels.