April 20-21, 2013
On Saturday we drove to Houston’s Chinatown to pick up
some dumplings and rice balls, and other ingredients for our Japanese meal we
planned for Saturday evening. The Hong Kong City Market is a massive mall in
the Chinatown area and is a fascinating place to browse—LOTS of foods that I’ve
never seen before!
Lots of unusual sights and smells too, including a guy
pushing a trolley through the grocery store on which are suspended about 10
whole ducks and what appears to be a whole smoked hog (head included). The fish
market is something to see—huge whole fish of many varieties and other sea life
like squid, octopus and a tank of giant clams. And sardines are apparently
wildly popular: one whole long aisle of nothing but tinned sardines of various
kinds, and just in case that wasn’t enough, a couple of extra end caps on two
aisles with even more sardines piled up high. Is there something I don’t know
about sardines?
Houston has a large Asian population (second largest in
the U.S. behind only Los Angeles), and their sizable Chinatown should really be
called “Asiatown,” since many of the residents are Korean or Vietnamese, not
just Chinese. I’ve been to New York City’s Chinatown, and I think it would fit
inside the Hong Kong City Market in Houston! (Everything’s bigger in Texas…)
Sarah wanted to visit the toy store inside the Market and I bought her a little
white teddy bear as a souvenir.
We bought some strange, spiny fruits to try:
jackfruit and durian.
Mariann and I bought Asian fruit smoothies at a stand
near the front of the Market, complete with the latest drink trend, tapioca
balls.
These are the same tapioca as in tapioca pudding, but they’re “pearls”
about a quarter of an inch diameter and black. Apparently it’s popular in Asian
countries to put these in tea as well, and call it “bubble tea.” These balls
fall to the bottom of the drink and occasionally get sucked up with the
smoothie as you drink it and give you a shock, with their gummy texture. (A
really big diameter straw is used to drink these.)
Weird, but it started to
grow on me. In addition to the fruit flavors they had some interesting smoothie
variations, like “artichoke.” Might be a while before I try that one.
Dinner turned out good—grilled fish with miso, a chicken
rice dish with leeks, miso soup, and the fresh dumplings and rice balls we bought
at the market. A lot of food…
This morning (Sunday) Sarah and I went to church with
Michael and Debra.
They picked us up about 10:45 am, for the 11 am worship
service. The church, Cypress Fellowship, is a nondenominational group, and
currently rents space in a strip mall, but this past week they purchased an
11-acre property to build on. It’s a friendly and vibrant-seeming congregation,
with many youth activities. The music (modern) and preaching were very good.
Afterwards Debra and Michael brought us home and we all
had lunch from all the leftovers of the past two days. Then we played on Apple
TV, watching various funny videos from YouTube, before deciding to head to the
schoolyard to shoot baskets and play outside.
The weather has been really nice
lately—cool nights, warm days and low humidity, which won’t last long here! We
played a game of “HORSE” (I lost big) and
then a game of “Around the World” which I almost won (came in second to Jeff).
Now we’re heading to our favorite nearby Mexican
restaurant, La Hacienda, for a family supper together, as it’s our last night
here. Tomorrow Jack and I start driving to Big Bend National Park, a two-day
drive, at least for us…
So, do you recommend Jackfruit and Durian?
ReplyDeleteThe jackfruit turned out to look too brown, like it was rotten, so we didn't eat it. We ate some of the durian yesterday morning before we left Jeff and Mariann's. Hmmm. When you cut into it, it smells EXACTLY like cat pee. I mean EXACTLY. We ate it anyway. You have to hold your nose to get it in your mouth, but then it's edible. Not that I would ever seek it out, but it's supposed to be a superfruit with all kinds of micronutrients. I could see it being sort of good in a smoothie with lime or lemon.
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