Dim Sum = Chinese Brunch

As a white girl growing up in a primarily white town, I always thought that brunch involved some sort of combination of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, fruit, quiche, pigs in a blanket, roast beef with au jus and ham, carved by a chef wearing a white apron and poofy white hat, desserts and anything else deemed "brunch worthy".

While visiting a college friend in 1992 in Boston, I was introduced to dim sum, or what I now call, Chinese brunch. While this didn't forever alter my life, dim sum did pave the way for a complete and utter exploration of Asian cuisines that had thus far been comprised of bad Chinese food served at the suburbanized restaurants of my childhood.

For those of you who don't know, dim sum is oodles of small Chinese dishes, delivered by a number of waiters/waitresses carrying or wheeling hot trays of food, shouting out the almost indecipherable name of the dish. If one isn't Asian or intimately familiar with the dishes, it's an adventure in culinary dining.

In my opinion, dim sum is really wonderful. It's brunch...but not like anything I've ever had. Sweet pork buns. Shrimp sandwiched in between rice noodles. Mushrooms stuffed with some type of seafood. Fried tofu. Fried taro cake. Shu mai (shrimp). Tripe. So much other stuff...some weird, some not. I like the trays carrying ducks, with heads still attached (Ming's, in Palo Alto). I did once eat chickens feet, a popular treat. Not too bad, but an awful lot of work for so little meat.

Obviously, I had dim sum fairly recently. Sunday morning, to be exact, at Mayflower in the Richmond. It was all delicious. I want to go back...

Sushi Rocks & Farewell

My colleagues Bill and Michelle are leaving the Bay Area. Michelle sat in the cube next to me; day in and day out, she'd politely listen to my constant stream of chatter. I'll miss her...and Bill is just damn funny. They're both on to better things.

Farewell dinner at Sushi Rocks in Pac Heights. I've had better, but it's still very good and features a huge menu of highly creative rolls. The spider is one of my favorites and the Dynamite roll was quite good, too.

I had one of the worst cosmos ever at Cozmo's, some swanky restaurant club in the Marina. And when I suggested that the bartender use a spoon to make a black and tan, he snapped at me "I know what I'm doing, I've been doing this for several years". The club around the corner was much better, but by then, it was all beer for me.