sold out

i'm guilty of frequently lamenting that there are no good chinese restaurants in europe. chinese restaurants (within my budget, bayswater notwithstanding) tend to get lumped together with random bits of asia's culinary offerings. on a not-so-unrelated note, as J petulantly pointed out, 'we've a restaurant in my hometown that doesn't know if it's japanese or korean. the sign says japanese but it serves bulgogi and sushi.' much ink can be spilt on this culinary phenomenon - the attempted assimilation of immigrants; adapting asian cuisine to the local palate; economies of scale but i'm not interested in deep sociopolitical discourse. well, not at 1043h anyway.

my lone point is this - i used to complain that there weren't enough specialised restaurants and the asian restaurants proliferating europe are sorry hodgepodge excuses that i wouldn't be caught dead in unless i'm on the brink of starvation. what in the world is kung pow chicken anyway? or chop suey? FAKE FAKE FAKE and in fact, probably how an italian would react in shenzhen. BUT when i invited J and S over for a simple asian night in i.e. dinner at chez moi, all i could offer them were spring rolls (not very asian) and chicken chow mein, the staple of any substandard asian take-out. limited kitchen and grocery resources would be a paltry excuse, seeing that there are asian grocers in stockholm and my little communal kitchen is surprisingly well-stocked, cleaniness of communal pots and pans aside. so there's no excuse really but my sheer sloth, inexperience (i learnt how to chow from youtube) and seeming ability to maintain a grip on my chinese culinary heritage. not that i ever had a good hold on it to begin with....

and in true student on a budget fashion, i asked for some help with dessert and they brought apple pie, ice cream and glogg. i just had the remnants of glogg for breakfast, which according to S makes me a first rate alkie but in my defence, the negligible alcohol it in couldn't have withstood all that stove time. also, tell a lie. i ate up the pie and ice cream for breakfast too. move over kelloggs, this' the new breakfast of champions!