Another lunch with RO

 

Around 30 years ago, my late wife and I found the above book at Barnes and Noble.  Living reasonably close to the city as we did, we'd make regular pilgrimages to Manhattan's Chinatown and the one that was developing in Flushing to get a good Dim Sum meal.  If there was a good Chinese Restaurant, we'd move heaven and earth to get there.

 

At the time this book was published, we had several definitions for the quality of Chinese restaurants:

• Local - The food was edible, but we wouldn't go out of town for it.
• Acceptable - The food was decent, and worth going one or two towns over to dine in the place.
• Good - The place was an hour or more away, and well worth the effort to eat there. (I miss The Little Bear near Woodstock, NY.)
  
• Very Good - The place was outside the region, and a must visit when in the area. (Empress of China - San Francisco, CA)
  
• Excellent - The place is on the other side of the globe, and a bucket list must visit.

Needless to say, we never had the chance to get to the last category of restaurants.  My wife had a friend where she worked who could tell us great places to eat when in China.  But she died before I had accumulated enough money to take this kind of bucket list trip.

 

 

I'm still willing to go to the ends of the earth for a good meal.  And today, I had the chance to revisit Qin Dynasty in Parsippany, NJ.  Qin Dynasty is an unassuming place sited in front of the Red Roof Inn on Route 46.  There is nothing special to recommend this place, other than it was a convenient midpoint for RO and I to get together.

 

RO and I have eaten at this place several times before, and we always have several plates of Dim Sum.  Today, we tried one of the dinner dishes along with our usual order of Dim Sum.  And it was up to the quality of the joints I often visit in Manhattan.  I can also say the same for their Dim Sum - it's good, and worth eating when in the area.  But I wouldn't schedule a special drive to get to this place, as RQS and I know better places for Dim Sum closer to home.

 

Yet, you might ask: Why do I recommend this place?

 

The answer is simple.  There are few enough decent places which have a wide variety of Dim Sum on their menus, and this is one of them.  One can find the standard offerings such as Shu Mai, Pork Buns, and soup dumplings.  But this place also has things such as duck filled dumplings and peanut filled dumplings. And I usually try to order something new at every meal.

 

Luckily, I can go to Aberdeen in White Plains, NY and have a good variety of tasty dishes there.  But if I'm near Parsippany, I'll try to visit Qin Dynasty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something to be thankful for, but....

 

What can I say about this Thanksgiving? It certainly wasn't what I would have wanted or planned. Yet, I am thankful for it....

Without going into all the other options that didn't pan out, there was one option that opened up to me too late for me to say "yes".  But I'd have rather this option had not opened up.  My friend, TCL, had invited one of her friends over to have a Thanksgiving meal with her at a local restaurant.  This gentleman is a little bit of a flake at times, but TCL made sure that I understood that her friend had a very good reason to skip the meal - he had to be admitted into the local hospital.  Although I can't go into any more details, TCL was able to show me that his situation was serious, and that he needed immediate treatment and care.  I wish I could have then said yes to TCL, but I already had plans with FH and didn't want to break them.

Many people might not have known that Boston Market was open (in a limited way) for Thanksgiving.  People had a very limited choice of meals, as the stores were doing Thanksgiving Feasts to go. Lines stretched out the doors, and out to the back of the stores. Yet, they moved quickly, as evidenced by the one I was on.  After picking up 3 meals (1 each for FH, her daughter, and me), I was off to Forest Hills for dinner.

Once I reached Queens, I decided to look for plastic utensils, so that we didn't need to clean up anything. I ended up driving through Flushing, and the area is even more built up and more like a part of Asia than I remember it being.  (The heart of Flushing is one of New York's newer Chinatowns, and I wanted to see what has changed since I was there last.)  Eventually, I made it to FH's place, and I was extremely lucky to find a place in front of her door.  Even more so, I was lucky that the door was open to her building, since both the doorman was on duty AND that the temperature was in the 60s when I arrived.

Even though I bought 3 meals, the only thing FH's daughter wanted to eat was the Mac & Cheese bowl I picked up.  The girl (she's 21) is a very picky person, and didn't even want to eat anything else on the table.  Once dinner was complete, FH and I went to her cousin's house for an outdoors holiday chat, and I eventually dropped her off at her place a little before 9 pm.

Would I have chosen this day, knowing how things would be?  Probably not.  But I am grateful that FH is comfortable introducing me to her cousin and his daughter. And I am grateful that I had this place to be on Thanksgiving, a holiday I could have easily spent alone and depressed.