My New York City Trip and My Grandma's 100th/101st birthday!

 

I wanted to share my New York trip from last month. It was the first time I went back for Lunar New Year in a long time, and it was also my birthday weekend, so we ended up celebrating both at the same time. 

My mom tends to make some of the food at home, and the rest of the dishes comes from a restaurant. I really like the soup which has some fish and crab meat. Steamed lobster is always a favorite. My sister really likes the clam dish. There's a jellyfish dish that my brother loves. I really like the fish and tofu dish. The mushroom and abalone dish are not my favorite but I'll eat it in small pieces. 

Family picture time! 

This is my favorite cake ever. It's Lady M's Chocolate Mille Crêpe cake. It's so good. My sister got it for me! They do ship if anyone wants to try it. Right now they are offering free standard shipping until April 10th! I'm tempted to order one. 😍

My grandma gave me the prettiest red envelope this year! Red envelopes have come a long way since the 80s. 😂

Pork Noodle Soup

This is the first time I went to Xi'an Famous Foods noodle shop. Most of the menu is spicy, but there are a handful that aren't. You can also tell them how spicy you want it, but generally I can't handle anything more than a mild level of spice so I usually opt for no spice to keep it safe. Or maybe I'll ask for the spice on the side if it's possible. But I'm all about noodles these days and this was fantastic! The noodles are made by hand! 

Spicy Beef Noodles

Went to Patsy's Pizzeria with a friend and she ordered the pepperoni and sausage pie. I wasn't very hungry so I only ordered a bowl of chicken soup. I'm not a huge pizza fan. If I'm hungry and it's there, I'll eat it, but if I'm not hungry I can easily pass. For a long time I didn't like cheese. Growing up in a Chinese household, cheese was never an ingredient that was used in any dish. The first time I had a slice of pizza I was maybe six, seven years old and I really didn't like it. I peeled off the layer of cheese and until all that was left was the totmato sauce and the flat bread. 😆 But as I got older, eventually I learned to like it. To this day, I still can't eat cheese on its own, I need to have it with something. 

Every Winter solstice my family would make this savory soup. Since I missed it, my dad would make this special for me when I visit. It's basically made of rice balls, cabbage, pork, mushrooms, dried shrimp and dried scallop. It's really tasty. Food really is my family's love language. It's a constant thing being asked to eat when I'm there. "Here have some of this!" But I'm not hungry. "Just eat it!" 😂

The second trip to New York was to celebrate my grandma's birthday. There's a bit of a disagreement to how old she is. My grandma says she's 101, but my mom keeps insisting she's 100. When you're that old, why would you even want to argue? So my mom wanted to get her these number balloons. I really wanted to go with my grandmother's age, but I knew my mom would have a fit and there's just no arguing with her. You'll never win. 

So, we got her two cakes. These are from Paris Bagette. The top one is Blueberry Yogurt Cake, very delicious. The bottom one is the Chocolate Strawberry Cake. Between the two, I actually preferred the blueberry even though I love chocolate!

While spending time with my grandma, she asked me to pull out her collection of photographs and I found these two photos of my dad when he was in his early 20s? I love looking at old photos. I can't get over how young my dad looks in these pictures!

One of my last days in New York I went to Chinatown to meet up with some girlfriends that I've known forever. They snapped these photos of me. I admit, I do miss being able to walk around and not have to rely on a car for transportation. 

Of course we had to have dim sum at Jing Fong. It's our go-to for dim sum. They never seem to mind if we just sit there for three hours to talk and catch up. Their chicken feet and shrimp rice noodle dish is fantastic! 

That's it for me! Hope you all have a fantastic Monday!