Want Wonton?

It was Friday. It was a nice day and neither I nor The Guy in the Cube Next to Me had brought lunch. He suggested we drive off to get some food. We were both getting over colds, so we decided to go grab soup. But what kind of soup? He suggested phô, but I never have good luck with phô. So then he suggested this wonton soup place where he knew the owners. Or at least he knew the original owners.

The original owners had a family spat and then one brother opened a place under the original name in another part of town, and the original place was taken over by the other brother and its name changed to something else entirely. But apparently both places were exactly the same, with the same menu and everything.

The Guy in The Next Cube said that everything at this place, from the soup to the noodles to the wonton was made from scratch, but that the place itself was totally ghetto and had almost no parking.

The guy was right about the parking situation: the lot was cramped and there appeared to be way too few spots for the number of restaurants in the plaza.

Chopsticks, spoon and mystery noodle.

I let my coworker order for me because the menu wasn't really in English and my coworker speaks Cantonese. I think the broth was a fish broth. The wontons were these baseball-sized balls of shrimp (you can only get shrimp, not that the English menu mentions this) wrapped in thin wonton dough. The noodles were..something? No one could tell me what was in the noodles. They were "wonton noodles". I sometimes wish that I could get better info whenever I went to an "authentic" Asian place. I mean, seriously, why is it that I can't get a straight answer at these places? Am I just supposed to assume that the lack of straight answers and accurate English menu speaks to the authenticity?

*sigh*

Whetevs. It was tasty. And my coworker was impressed with my chopstick skills.

That's a Very Loose Interpretation of Pork Dumplings

I hate it sometimes when I forget my lunch at home.

On days when I've gotten a really shitty parking spot and figure that if I leave and come back I'll get a better spot, I don't mind getting in my car and driving to get something reasonable to eat. 

On other days, I get a really, really good parking spot and I'd rather not lose it just to go grab lunch.  On those days I'm at the whim of the two lunch counters that cater to my business park.

As you know (if you exist and if you've read anything beside this post on this blog) I have given up on the revoltingly greasy diner preferred by my coworkers and have instead started to frequent the "sandwich" place that boasts bulgogi and bim bim bap on their menu.  The other day I went to that place on Dumpling Tuesday.  I'd never had dumplings from them before and figured it couldn't be that bad.  I mean, their Business Park Bulgogi was pretty decent, and plus they have Sriracha to make their food palatable.

Why bother with the pork in pork dumplings?

Oh geez, how wrong I was!  The "pork" "dumplings" were these deep-fried things filled with what appeared to be pulverized cabbage.  They tasted of fried and that was about it.  They were served with rice and some random sauce.    Thank the Universe for Sriracha or else I don't think I would have eaten that day.

It was so bad that for the first time I regretted not going to the greasy diner; they had pierogies that day.

The Smells of Eastern Europe

That's maple syrup, from happier brunches.

I made latkes for brunch over the weekend.

They were potato and sweet potato baked latkes -- or at least they were supposed to be baked. 

Spousal unit decided that the latkes "weren't turning out right" baked and fried a few.  The problem with that is that you can't fry latke batter made for baking; it absorbs way too much oil.

The long and the short of it was that the latkes ended up being revolting oily masses and the whole apartment stunk of fried food.  Spousal Unit (who is kinda Polishy/Russianesque) joked that the place smelled like Eastern Europe. 

At least the coffee was good.

The Dark Side

A friend of mine who works downtown in a hipper, more socially-responsible job than me, had the day off and decided to come up to the 'burbs to have lunch with me.  She's a vegetarian and so I figured she'd want to go to the panini place or the cheap-but-excellent Industrial Park Indian buffet. (The Indian buffet in the industrial park just south of the business park really is very good, but I was unable to take a picture when I ate there.  I had gone with civilized people and it's not OK to take pictures of empty, filthy place when you're in polite company.)

But for some reason my very cool, very hip, very vegetarian and very anti-establishment friend wanted to go to a chain restaurant that was reminiscent of the movie Office Space, only a bit more upscale.

We walked in and she exclaimed, "This place is full of men!"  And I was like, duh, it's a high-tech business park, what do you expect?  If we had gone to the panini place just outside the business park -- which, incidentally, makes an awesome veggie sandwich -- there would have have been more women.

Anyways.  I had the fish and chips because it seemed safe.  She had the fish tacos because there were no reasonable vegetarian options (surprise!) and she's actually a fishetarian.

She finished her fish tacos, but I couldn't finish my two giant, extra-oily battered fish fillets with extra-salty fries, so I got a doggy bag.

"Fat, I am your father."

The panini place might have been better, but I would never have experienced a black take-out container that reminded me of Darth Vader's dirty helmet at the beginning of Star Wars. (Though I suspect George Lucas scrubbed it for his digitally remastered abominations).

Grease is the Word

My mom made me breakfast.  It was an Italian version of hash made with stale baguette, chunks of parmiggiano cheese and eggs.  It was the most revolting, greasy mass of food I'd ever tasted.

Basically what my mom did was warm up some olive oil in a skillet and then she threw in the baguette  chunks.  While those were frying/sauteing, she cut up small cubes of parmiggiano.  When the bread had fried up and absorbed a lot of the oil, she threw in the cheese and some hot pepper flakes, and mixed it all up.  Once the cheese started to melt, she cracked two eggs into the oily mass and fried them.  The yolks broke, of course, and spilled all over the fried bread. 

It's going to take more than just Dawn to clean up that grease!

In the plate, it looked like a giant mass of oily stuff with egg yolk all over it.  I had a moment where I considered not eating it.  I was like, "What the hell, Mom?  Is this some kind of a joke?"  My mom rolled her eyes and told me that  my dad loved this dish, and that I could either eat it and shut up or make my own damned breakfast!

Anyways, despite the fact that the grease literally dripped off my fork, I ate the whole thing.  I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

It was the greasiest, most revolting breakfast ever.  EVER.  But it was also the most tastiest breakfast in the history of breakfast!  It was like all these elements in my mouth combined to be the Perfect Storm of umami salty spicy fat to start a morning. 

Damned.

Now I have to try making it myself and I'll probably get evicted for smelling up the floor.

Cupcakes! And Taming of Silvia!

Almost all my coworkers are guys.  They don't cook, let alone bake.  But they all appear to be married to women who do.  How it's possible that all these guys are married to successful career women who work full-time but yet have time in the evenings to make slow-cooker pulled pork and chocolate cake is a mystery that shall never be solved.

 

Most of the time I just hear about the desserts, though.  I see the leftovers of the roast guinea hen and mashed heirloom root vegetables (all organic, of course) when the guys bring them in for lunch, but I never see the desserts.  Information about the desserts is apocryphal:  "Ellen makes the best chocolate cake!"  "Tamsyn's trifle is really the best I've ever had!" etc.  

 

Then one time a guy brought in red velvet cupcakes that his wife had made.  They were really, really good.  I ate two.

 

And then on Wednesday I saw an email that said "Cupcakes.  Come get 'em".  The wife of one of the marketing guys had made a zillion white cupcakes (of indeterminate flavour and icing) and they were gone within 20 minutes.  I ate one.  It was very good.  It was downed with some instant coffee. 

Marketing Cupcake

But I could have had it with some espresso made by Silvia because I have tamed the shrew!

I found this page, Cheating Miss Silvia, and have used the information therein to make very, very tasty coffees.  I now make espressos for the office.  If anyone wants an espresso, they come to me.  I am the Queen of the Machine!  I am the suzerain! 

It's Oatmeal and Vegetables, It MUST Be Healthy!

The snack closet was full of Veggie Straws again.  After many weeks of having only multigrain crackers and granola bars (not the tasty ones, the healthy ones) and Motts Fruitsations, today the snack closet offered up Veggie Straws.  You could actually hear people give little cheers upon opening the closet.  They'd open the door, expecting some kind of high-fiber hell, and instead exclaim, "Hey!  Veggie Straws!  Awesome!"

It's a very sad day when Veggie Straws cause that much excitement.  Of course there were also revoltingly bad-for-you "granola" bars.  You really didn't want to read the ingredient list before taking one.  I did and discovered that they contained shortening (SHORTENING!). I put the bar back, thus depriving myself of a "yogurt dipped" "chewy" bar.

I can feel myself getting healthier.

I ended up just having my homemade oatmeal-chocolate-chip muffin.  And some Veggie Straws, because you need your veggies.  I had actually wandered into the break room when Burton, the Senior Product Manager, was telling Arthur, the Senior R&D Manager, that the Veggie Straws must be healthy because it said right on the bag that they were "Garden Vegetable" flavour.  Then he started reading the ingredient list: They're made with potatoes, spinach powder and tomato paste.   We all agreed -- well all except for Arthur, who eats only whole grains and no animal fat -- that the Veggie Straws were very healthy.

And  of course I had coffee.  I've finally figured out how to bend Silvia to my will, but more on that another day.