mainland china

I had dim sum tonight! Actually, I can't really qualify it as dim sum; it was siu mai, but it wasn't nearly as good as the siu mai at the Hong Kong Flower Lounge. We went to a restaurant called Mainland China for a small-team dinner, but their dim sum selection left much to be desired. They did have something along the lines of 'bean curd delight', but since I was being safe and tame for my coworkers (rather than playing the 'Shrimp or Feet?' game), I didn't order it. The food was pretty good, although I think I preferred the Chinese food that I had at Ohri's two weeks ago. They did have these awesome butterfly-cut jumbo prawns that were to die for, and there was a crackling spinach dish that was intriguing and surprisingly rich, but the lemon chicken had a day-glo tinge to it and the fried crabs were smothered in a sauce that I didn't care for. However, dinner itself was fun; there were six of us, all female, and so the conversation was very entertaining...and also manageable, unlike when I go out with a group of fourteen people.

For a girl who showed up in California without ever having held a pair of chopsticks before, it was quite a surprise to find myself at a dinner where I was the only person who wanted to use them. Eating dim sum every week for several years has definitely improved my chopstick skillz, even if it hasn't done anything for my bank account or my fruitless endeavors to lead a normal, grown-up life.

I interviewed someone for a job today, and it was quite shocking to find that he had studied at the University of Nebraska. Moreover, when I asked him to describe a bad customer service experience he'd had in the past, he referenced Hy-Vee (the local grocery chain headquartered in Iowa)!! It's funny that he mentioned Hy-Vee...I was hoping that he'd claim he'd gotten food poisoning or something, but instead he said that the bagger was this old lady, and that she'd put his carton of eggs at the bottom of the sack and then put a heavy bag of rice on top of it, and the rice had immediately crushed the eggs. He asked her what she thought she was doing, and she said that she'd been doing it for thirty years and he shouldn't question her. So, he ended up with eight crushed eggs, no one was manning the consumer complaints desk, and he ended up switching grocery stores.

This will probably only be funny to people who shop at Hy-Vee, particularly the one in my home town, where the grocery store only has seven aisles, the meat is usually slightly suspect, and they also serve as a video rental store. It definitely made me feel very sympathetic toward the candidate--going from Hyderabad to Nebraska is probably as much or more of a culture shock than going from Iowa to California to Hyderabad. And since I only talk about Hy-Vee with Ritu back in California, it was super shocking to hear it in an interview here. Small world, eh?

Now, it's time for bed. Also, happy birthday Uncle Mark!