We went to Margaret Kuo's restaurant last night for a Chinese New Year feast. It was really good. I would say it was better than Cin Cin, or even Susanna Foo. There were seven courses. Somehow they were supposed to be specially complementary to 4706, the Year of the Rat, although luckily the honored
animal did not make an appearance
in any way,
except for the cute logo on the menu, which you can see.
Here are the courses:
- Chef's Tri-Happiness Hors d'oeuves Platter (beef, asparagus and spicy shrimp)
- Steamed Crabmeat and Pork Bun Shanghai Style
- Royal Peking Duck
- Mandarin Cold Water Lobster Tail
- Grass-fed Beef Filet in Chinese Rice Wine Sauce
- Pine Nut Sea Bass (this was our favorite)
- Propitious Sweet Rice with Eight Treasures
Fortunately, the first four courses were pretty small. We were able to soldier on up to about half way through the beef and sea bass, but then we hit the wall, and had to ask them to pack the rest up for us to take home.
Margaret is going to be cooking some of these at the
James Beard Foundation next week in New York , but we got to eat it first!
Pet update:
Olive's First Prey of 2008 has been identified as a meadow vole (
Microtus pennsylvanicus) which emerged from hibernation at just the wrong time, at least from its point of view. Well, technically, this was her first prey not counting the decorative ears of corn she's been dragging around the dining room. We also heard some meowing from Olive this morning while she was perched on the window sill. This turned out to be due to an invasion by Gray Kitty, a neighbor cat
who has been encroaching on Whitey and Olive's territory.
Here are some pictures of our latest home
improvments. First,
a fireplace insert with a fake electric fire
and heater. This doesn't look
as cool as a real fire, but it also
doesn't
suck all the heat out of the
house and take forever to get started. The picture was supposed to show me
cozily having a
cup of tea and reading
a book with a cat sleeping on my lap, but the cat (Olive) declined to cooperate and had to be held on my lap
with a death grip
while the picture was taken. That's why she and I both look a
bit tense
in the picture.
After taking the fire picture, we
retired to the basement pub
(still not named! please see earlier post!) to take the other picture, which
shows the new bar after the wood was finished, along with our new fake tree. We're trying to achieve
the atmosphere of a "fern pub". Since there's almost no natural light in the basement, this has to be done with fake greenery.
On the other hand, if we wanted to work with the natural light,
the other option would be to have a "mushroom pub".
