Trip to China Town

Our good friends Catherine and Allen took us on a trip to China Town for lunch and some grocery shopping. R.D. was very excited to get some different ingredients. Before hitting the grocery, we went for Dim Sum. It had been many years since Tony (R.D.'s Dad) and I had Dim Sum and it was as good as we remembered. Our hosts were very gracious and explained every dish and we drank a ton of tea, probably why I couldn't sleep that night! Once we got to the grocery we spent at least 2 hours going up and down every isle. All of the products were very interesting and so different. It seemed like we were in a different world everyone around us speaking Chinese. R.D. seemed to like the the meat and veggie area best, they had duck heads and tongue. He also spent a lot of time with the fresh ginger. Catherine takes a trip to this store every weekend and 9 out of 10 times brings home fresh fish. And when she says fresh, she means fresh! Basically you picks a fish out of the tank and they hit it with a mallet and clean it,you can't do that at stop and shop! R.D. wanted to also bring home one of these fish and steam in his bamboo steamer. The grocery has different kinds of fish, but on this day there was tilapia. R.D. got two fish and we amazingly watched the process. Now this is fresh... we started seaming it about 2 hours after R.I.P! Once we got home, the fish needed to be cleaned a bit more, but neither one of us wanted to touch them... haha (the were actually still moving a little). This is where our big mistake comes in haha. We should have cleaned it a lot more. When talking to Catherine about this the next day, she runs water into the fish for about 10 minutes... we did not do this. It was also hard to take the meat off the bone, so our plates did not look very pretty and the fish tasted dirty. On the way out of China Town we stopped by what I can only call a Chinese deli. They had ducks hanging and all kinds of great looking food. We picked up some real BBQ boneless spare ribs... not those red ones from the take out place on the corner, these were real. Overall it was a great trip and we can't wait to go again... R.D. wants to give the fish another try.