chinatown

It was a long, long weekend for him - i have a permanent long weekend! - and we decided to go visit chinatown. We woke up to a gloomy morning - it was drizzling. Surprising, i didn't behave like my usual self and hide under the blanket. i guess i was getting too tired of being inside the house and permanently attached to the bed!

So we braved the silly weather and went hunting for chinatown. My intentions were more culinary than touristy - i wanted to see if i could lay my hands on mustard leaves and chives and generally check out if i could recognise half of the things on display - which is one thing i love doing when i go to oriental stores.

So there we were, searching for this shop i saw on the net. Eagle-eyed creatures as we both are, we passed by it without noticing it, walked the whole length of chinatown (thank god, it was not big or i would have died) and came back to square one only to find the shop there!

i was over the moon to find so many vegetables and herbs from back home - ekaithabi (water weed), tenou maanbi (winged beans), awa phadigom, hanggam (mustard)...i was so excited, like a kid in a candy shop. After i circled the shop some 10 times, he had to drag me away! We bought veggies and duck - my favourite meat. Then we went for lunch at this chinese restuarant where they had peking ducks hanging in a row on the display window along with a squid. He wanted to have peking duck - i, the supposedly adventurous one, wanted to stick to fried rice. In the end, we had both. i didn't like the peking duck - it was bland. i was supposed to have it wrapped in the pancakes along with spring onion, cucumber and a sinister looking sauce. i got scared of the sauce, foregoed the duck and ended up eating all the cucumber strips!