Friday, October 29, 2010

New Restaurants: Sushi and Dim Sum

My weeknights are usually dominated by running, pooling, or refugees, but this week I’ve been going out and being social (crazy, I know!).

On Tuesday night I skipped practice to meet one of my Boston friends for happy hour.

We originally planned to go to Nooshi (the entire menu is half-price until 7!), but we missed the deadline, so we meandered down the block to try Bibimbap Rice Bar’s happy hour (which graciously extends until 8).

Bibimbap is a Korean rice bowl, but their happy hour is all about sushi. And for $3 a roll this sushi satisfied! It’s nothing elaborate, I had a California and a Tuna Avocado roll, but for half the price of grocery store sushi it was great!

Then last night I met up with SpeedyKate for a marathon and vacation debrief (her marathon and her vacation, not mine!). We did dinner at Ping Pong Dim Sum. It was delicious! Definitely a small plates situation, so good thing I wasn’t hangry. But the little dumplings were surprisingly filling and absolutely scrumptious! The menu is divided into sections by dumpling type (puffs, steamed, fried, rice parcels, buns). There are also soups, salads, signature dishes and desserts, but we stuck to the dim sum. We tried:

Crab Shu Mai – open crab pastry (this one was a special, so I don’t have the details) (steamed)

Ork Shu Mai pork and king prawns in an open pastry topped with chinese wolfberry (steamed)

Vegetarian V rice with fresh vegetables seasoned with garlic wrapped in lotus leaf (sticky rice parcel)

Spicy Basil Dumpling basil & chili with rice noodles in wheat flour pastry with a vinegar dipping sauce
They accidently gave us the wrong thing, so we got to try the Spicy Vegetables Dumpling V sauteed vegetables and rice vermicelli in chili and garlic sauce in crystal pastry (steamed)
They were all really flavorful - definitely get at least one rice parcel, and other than that I think the Crab Shu Mai was my favorite. One thing though, most of the dumplings come in threes, so keep that in mind when ordering (they're hard to split in half, but SpeedyKate is a chopstick master!).

We chased out dim sum with some fro yo – FroZenYo to be exact! This is one of those DIY and pay by weight places and it’s soooo good! (I’ve blogged about the Colombia Heights location before.)I got Coconut Truffle, Pumpkin, Red Velvet, and Dulce de Leche fro yo and topped it with slivered almonds, raspberries and hot fudge. Swoon! The Dulce de Leche was really flavorful and definitely my favorite.

So it’s been a well-fed week. And I anticipate a weekend of sugar-coma (I'm already well on my way!). That is the essence of Halloween, right? Get excited for yet another EPIC Weekend Report on Monday!