Flushing

In a break from my mad, mad schedule, we headed off to Flushing last night for dinner at the wonderful Dong Bei restaurant, Fu Run, and a bit of after-dinner shopping at a local Asian mall and J Mart (an Asian supermarket, not the South Park K-Mart).

As usual, dinner was first rate. Dong Bei is a Northern Chinese cuisine unlike most Chinese food found in America. We had what has become our usual selection--green been sheet jelly with red oil (a spicy and wonderful salad of nappa cabbage, noodles, cilantro, peanuts, garlic and the red oil), shredded potatoes with green peppers and garlic (the potatoes are nearly raw and look like vermicelli), triple delight vegetables (a more conventional but still yummy combination of potatoes, eggplant and green peppers in a spicy garlic-laden brown sauce), ma po tofu and a leek and egg pancake. The potatoes and green bean jelly are amazing and sublime--I wish I was eating them now.

After eating, we browsed Asian pop culture stores, beauty products and ephemera, then picked up a few basics--pocky sticks, hot oil, chillis in oil, dan dan noodle sauce. I took pictures of the beautiful packaging that may end up below. And then I went back to continue writing lectures and grading. As a consequence I dreamt about Turkish German relations in post-wall Germany and its cinema but that's another matter for another day--specifically Monday, 12.30-4.30 p.m.