Tonight's Dinner: March 2, 2014

After strategically marathoning Veronica Mars seasons 1-3, I headed back home to get Nick and his sister to go to a belated Chinese New Year dinner with his San Francisco grandma.  By strategic marathoning I mean that my friend researched all the important episodes and specific scenes for us to watch so that we would be caught up for the movie.  There was just no way that we would get through three seasons of 40 minute long episodes in one sleep over.  And being that we all have full-time jobs that often call some of us on weekends, it’s rare that we can spare so much time to get together.  We had to be smart about the viewing.  Thankfully, my friend had already thought about all of this.  If I was hosting, we’d still be on season one.

It was poor planning on Nick an my part, however, as the restaurant in Daly City was only about 20 minutes away from my friend’s house.  I drove an hour back home to hop back in the car and drive another hour back out to the same area.  The dinner was really good though and well worth the drive.  We pretty much ordered all seafood with the exception of some vegetables and a lamb dish that my mother-in-law wanted.  Although we both love all of this kind of food, both of our stomachs were rumbling all night.  Since I had consumed more coffee during the day than normal, I couldn’t sleep.  I could hear our stomachs growling all night long.  I’m pretty sure it’s all the oil that goes into the food and that we don’t normally eat such giant portions. 

We have been told that the eggs of the shrimp are a delicacy, but even Nick, who eats pretty much anything, won't eat them.  My father-in-law has to eat them off before we will touch them.  Even then, I'm squeamish and don't like to take the heads off myself.  Nick usually does that job for me and then gets the joy of sucking out the brains.  I don't mind peeling the rest of the body, but tonight it was a two part process for me.

Giant clams with glass noodles.

Though this soup looks boring, it was really, really tasty.  There was black chicken, shrimp wonton, and abalone with lettuce in the soup.

A cut up piece of abalone.

Geoduck body stir fry.

Geoduck head stir fried with pickled vegetables.

Lamb stew

They heat the stew right at your table. Once you eat some of the stew, they come back and add a whole bunch of lettuce.  Wilted lettuce is really delicious.

Also in the stew is tofu skin (that light colored, squarish, crinkly stuff) water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots.

This piece of lamb was a little funky.  They cook the lamb skin on.  Sometimes you can even see  furs still on the skin.  The meat with the skin attached is extra tender and flavorful, but the downside is the layer of fat that you have to get trough to get to the meat.  I don't eat the skin or fat because it's just a little too much for me.

What it looked like with the skin peeled back.

Fried tofu

Egg custard dessert buns.

This was something new to me.  It was a sweet pumpkin dessert soup.