Qin Dynasty Seafood Restaurant (秦皇食府)

Parsippany NJ.

A few years ago, my parents were unwilling to drive me there to visit someone, but now, apparently, lunch is worth the (longish?) drive in the rain. We went in order to celebrate Mother's Day and my end of the semester as a college frosh. There were tons of people because it was tea/lunch time, and there were people pushing around trolleys of foods. Typical Cantonese restaurant style; you pick what you want, and they stamp at the correct section of a piece of card at the table, and later, you pay for however many stamps of food you got. Pretty neat, because you get to try sundry foods at a relatively low price (Okay, much cheaper in HK, but can't complain).

Xiao Long Bao - the buns with the soup. I didn't eat any but my sister liked them.

The egg tart's custard was phenomenally creamy and flavourful. The spring roll was still drenched in oil (Yes. Dripping.), but it was pretty good. At least I could tell what vegetables were inside it...

My brother liked this.

Pig blood. My brother and dad liked this. Bad picture quality. :( In the background, you can see the sesame ball thingy, which was pleasantly crunchy and not too sweet.

Nicely garnished and seasoned chicken legs.

Halfway through eating my egg tart, I felt compelled to take another picture because the cross section looks just as amazing as the whole egg tart. Notice how creamy it looks!

Fried tofu with one piece of shrimp in the centre. I'm not really sure how they managed to stuff/inject a cube of tofu with one piece of shrimp. The tofu wasn't that great, actually. The fried part was soggy (as it was in sauce...), so there was no real point of it being fried, in my opinion.

Dumplings with glutinous rice skin. For such large dumpling skins, the filling was really scant. It was also a cow flesh filling, along with some peanuts and a few pieces of vegetables.

The good thing about the waitresses was that they would explain pretty much anything on their trolleys. This green ball was apparently made with bitter melon...

...and it was absolutely NOTHING like bitter melon; inside was sesame paste and peanuts, and the green part was just glutinous rice that was deep-fried on the outside.

Rice noodles (chang2 fen3) filled with fried dough (you2 tiao2). Novel concept, nice sauce. I'm not super fond of fried dough, though. I really love rice noodles, however.

My brother and dad love durian. I don't. I never have, and I'm not sure that I ever will. This is a durian pastry.

It looks pretty delicious, actually, and I did eat some, first while smelling, but then without smelling the durian. By inhibiting my sense of smell, the flavour was harder to detect (Monell!), and I felt like I was just eating some sorta sweet pudding. However, I really can not ingest a lot of durian. I've tried it in all these forms, and I still really don't like it; I've had it fresh (the same way I eat any fresh fruit), in candy form (yes, durian candy exists), in chip form (well, okay, they were jackfruit chips), and now in pastry form.

And I still don't tolerate it.

Final thoughts:

Good for large groups: you get to try more dishes, and each dish is pretty easy to split

Great if you want authentic Chinese (actually, Cantonese) food without broccoli and cashews. I'm saying this because when we first moved to the U.S. and got food at Chinese restaurants, there was a lot of broccoli, cashews, and sweet food.

Kids like it (i.e. my sister, who doesn't eat much at home)

Pretty fair pricing.

Go between 11 and 2 on weekends. On weekdays, the variety seriously goes down, and any time after 2, the variety also goes down. If you go for dinner, you end up with the more formal Chinese restaurant style, with ordering actual dishes, and having bowls of rice, and a tureen of soup etc. If you want just casual dining with lots of choices, you should go for tea time/lunch!

Qin Dynasty Seafood Restaurant (秦皇食府), 857 Rt. 46 E, Parsippany

Sushi! Again!

Last time, I posted about Samurai Sushi but I didn't bring my camera, so I had no pictures. Here is a picture of the salad without the cherry tomato. It has a ginger dressing, which I suppose is what makes it Japanese, because I don't see yellow-green lettuce as something Japanese.

This time, I took a bunch of pictures but the lighting was terrible and everyone wanted to eat. This resulted in blurry pictures. However, I did have a sushi-related epiphany.

So, 6 small pieces of avocado sushi costs $3.95.

The sushi/sashimi boat costs approximately $52.

As a vegetarian, if I spent $52 on avocado sushi at Samurai Sushi, I could savour about 78 pieces of sushi.

Now, that is a LOT of sushi. I love avocado sushi. The avocado is amazingly creamy, and surprisingly goes well with soy sauce. A LOT of soy sauce, actually, because I wanted to savour the moment, indulge, and obtain 420% of my sodium RDA for the day. The avocado was a bit over-ripe but it was still great! I should make avocado sushi at home, actually.

This is the sushi boat. It is not boat shaped because they ran out of boats and apparently we would've had to wait a long time to get a wooden boat... so here is the humble version.

Looks good hm? Well my brother and parents liked it. My sister just ate the rice.

Here is a fried tofu. I like the outside crumb batter thingy, because it's crispy, but doesn't taste oily [although it IS oily]. The sauce is also nice although I don't think I'm too partial to it... I prefer pieces of avocado sushi more.

I know that sushi restaurants are generally more expensive than say, Italian restaurants, especially where I live. I sorely miss ParknShop with its $4 sushi [50c!!], occasionally lowered down to $2. However, we make sushi a lot at home, but it never seems as "legit" as the sushi at the stores, even though we use sushi rice and vinegar and nori. Perhaps we all go to sushi restaurants for the scenery, the dimmed lights, the tea [I'm not a tea fanatic so it's just... plain green tea to me], the cute plates and table-suitable bottles of soy sauce.

I mean, why do some people go to restaurants that sell really expensive yet mediocre food? It's just because they can then say, "Dude, I've been to this sick-famous restaurant...that you can't afford to go to!"

Conversely, going out to eat is considered icky if one is talking about college dining hall food. I don't understand why people think it's okay to speak badly about college restaurants, yet speak well of fast food places or other restaurants that offer the same food.

I suppose it has something to do with marketing; when was the last time a sushi store was advertised as elegant, healthy, and for the 1337? Oh, pretty much always. But, eating avocado sushi is definitely not balanced! With soy sauce, avocado sushi is too much sodium and too little protein.

Well, what about the animal eaters, then? Well, in this case, too much protein and cholesterol (?) and too few vitamins and minerals. Oh, and too much sodium.

It's not advertised that way, though... and I'm not sure why I'm analysing this, because I do like sushi a lot and I should actually be making of list that explain why sushi ought to be cheaper...

Chelo's

Thursday the 22nd of July: Chelo's for dinner. Though we were driving from Weymouth MA to Seekonk MA, the GPS told us to drive through RI... so we did, and on the outskirts, we happened across this restaurant, at which we had a great dinner. I don't understand why NJ and NY have all these toll roads, whereas we someone managed to avoid tolls everywhere else...

"Stuffies" appears to be a RI concept. We didn't get it; not my loss though since it's apparently this giant stuffed clam. My brother should've ordered it though; he was sort of regretting it. Eh, next time.

Warm bread rolls.

My dad got some French cow pie thing, which I believe is another RI dish. According to my brother, it was dry and too "meaty", because he was comparing it with the famous Australian Meat Pie. The mashed potato was really nice, though, and the CORN WAS AMAZING.

My grandpa got steak. He attained his goal of being able to live the "American Dream", which, for him, means consuming some steak with vegetables and mashed potato. This stuff, if done authentically in China [which I kind of doubt], is really expensive. Here, though, it's an average meal.

My mum got some seafood pasta, ate a few bites, and left the rest for the next day because she "wasn't hungry". This is why I DON'T order when we go out to eat. My mum barely ever gets through half of her meal... my sister never finishes her kids meal... my brother finishes about 50% of the time...

My brother got a "bananaberry salad", wherein the banana pieces are actually fried banana chips. They were with a balsamic dressing and a balsamic strawberry dressing. I don't like balsamic dressing. I like to use balsamic vinegar as an ingredient for jam and baked items, because it's just used to accent the flavour of everything else, but I honestly dislike the taste of balsamic vinegar itself. But not too deeply... I can tolerate most foods. Except liquorice. Anyway, I digress.

My curly fry swan!

Joe's American Bar & Grill

Such an iconic name. I wonder how filled-to-capacity this chain restaurant was, during the 2008 elections?

We went to the Braintree Mall on Wednesday the 21st, after visiting schools in Cambridge, and I honestly think that I shouldn't've ordered. In a family of 6 [for now], we should always order 4 items in an American restaurant. We have never finished 5 items, let alone six. Usually, I'm the one who doesn't order, simply because there is no main dish that I can eat due to the animal pieces. Also, though, I usually am the one who likes side dishes anyway [think salad, the bread, mashed potato... you know].

That day, my dad didn't order but I did, just to "change it up a little", though in all honesty, neither of us should've ordered. I got the spinach and artichoke dip, which is basically ubiquitous in any American grill style restaurant. In fact, if it wasn't for the seafoods section of the menu, one'd think that he/she had just walked into Applebees with different decor. Or Chili's with different decor. Or TGI with different decor. That's the problem I have with American restaurants. Sure, they offer a sense of "homeliness", but they also use the same cookie cutter. Except, Joe's American apparently makes all their food from scratch, whereas TGI reheats it.

My brother got chicken fajitas. I wish I could have a corn tortilla for once in my life instead of flour tortillas...

These are the best oyster crackers. Ever. Someone needs to send me a box of these. NO, NOT THE "Premium" brand oyster crackers [those have PHO]. It HAS to be this brand!!!!

My grandpa doesn't like coleslaw. This coleslaw wasn't as oily as the one from Clark's but I don't think I'm a huge fan of not-sour-enough-and-too-fatty coleslaw.

My brother's clam chowder. Okay, I tried some of the soup part. It was okay. Creamy. I like corn chowder more.

Spinach and artichoke dip with fatty cheese. Funny how we turn two vegetables into heart attacks, right? It was really creamy and definitely tasted more real than the kind from Applebee's. I'm serious. There were actual chunks of artichoke that LOOKED like chunks of artichoke! The pita chips were too salty, though. I liked how they gave us some celery with it, because at least that's a little different from the other stores out there, which probably don't even stock fresh celery.

My mum got this fish thingy with a corn and cucumber salad, which was quite amazing since I never imagined that the two could get moshed together so yummily.

My sister got a cheese pizza, with thin crust. It was amazing crust - look at the grill marks on the back! The topping wasn't that interesting though, and it was drenched in lipids.

Joe's American Bar & Grill, 250 Granite St. Braintree Mall, Braintree MA.

CANDY STORE OUTSIDE!

La Tasca

Spanish food is NOT Mexican food. It is NOT even close to Tex-Mex. People tend to forget that. Anyway, at D.C., we were wandering around the Gallery Place, after having visited all those museums, and we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe in order to show grandpa the "American" cuisine. Of course, being the disorganised family we are, we only decided this after trudging through random streets. By that time, we couldn't relocate it. Earlier, to prove that we actually passed by it, I had taken a picture: In the end, we went to La Tasca, which is a Spanish restaurant that sold tapas. On WordReference, "La Tasca" means "cheap bar" in Spanish, and "tapas" basically means "tapas". Or, "hors d'oeuvres". Or "snacks". [Today, I presented my senior project about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; great book! and there was tons of Spanish that I pronounced very badly. Je parle francais; haha]. Anyway, this is one of the times in which QUALITY is much more valued that "quantity".
My dad got some shrimp/scallop thing. $7
Grandpa got salmon. For these two, I have no opinion to give as I didn't consume animal pieces. $7.25
My bro got some kind of sausage with white beans. $6.75
My mum got this Spanish potato and egg and onion omelette. $5.75. In all honesty, this was really good [I tried some, because the mayo was spicy and my mum didn't like it]. Actually, it tasted more like mustardy-mayo, or something. It was EXOTIC!
My delicious mushroom risotto. Oh-so-smooth. $7
It's not really "La Tasca" because at Costco, you can get tons of food for $7. As in, you can get 48 pieces of sausage, or 92 mozzarella sticks. However, this restaurant had damn high quality [except for when they forgot to cook my brother's dish. By the time we 4 had finished, his dish hadn't arrived yet]. Although you can't really tell from them photos [they could be the size of my laptop, I guess], the serving sizes were really small, compared to other restaurant chains [the restaurant with the largest serving size has to be the American Olive Garden. I don't think I "love" Olive Garden. Anyway, good culture! [In the outskirts of D.C's Chinatown].