My good friend, Edmond Su, opened up a chinese restaurant a few months ago. I haven't been a good friend at keeping in touch, so I only found out about the restaurant last week. Turns out, the restaurant is pretty close to where we live.

My family was out to dinner one night, and I brought up to my parents that Edmond owns this restaurant now. We decided to visit the place to see how business was going. Turns out that even though he's only been in business a short while, he's doing pretty well. Drivers were coming in and out, and the phones were ringing off the hook. One thing Edmond told me is that they're actually surrounded by several chinese restaurants, so competition is high in the area, but he's modified his menu to be a fusion of "american-style" chinese food and more traditional chinese cuisine. He thinks that it's because of this that they're able to stand out in the midst of other local competitors.

So last night we decided to try the food for the first time. So I called Edmond up and just asked him to order me enough food for Carolyn and me. I left all the ordering in his hands and just let him take care of it.

When I got home and opened the bags, I realized that I think Edmond had forgotten exactly how much I eat, because there was easily enough food for 5-6 people! But it was delicious. Edmond included a wide variety of menu items for us to try. On the menu were some appetizers: Fried crab wontons, avocado and pork rolls, and wonton soup. For entrees, we had Black Pepper Shrimp and Scallops, Salt/Pepper Jalapeno Chicken Wings, Moo-Shu Pork, and Basil Chicken. Edmond also included two slices of cheesecake for dessert. Not quite a Chinese dessert, but I'm still gonna eat it later.

Everything was very good, but the entrees really stood out to me. Definitely not your standard Chinese food take-out. At least not in Austin. The Moo-Shu Pork was particularly tasty, especially when coupled with the sauce and wrapped in the chinese pan cakes. The shrimp and scallops dish were well paired with the other veggies in the dish. Carolyn did say that she wished we had gotten a stand-alone vegetable dish, but we can order that ourselves next time. I liked the basil chicken, although I'm not a huge fan of multiple fried foods, so I'd probably only get one fried item next time (no egg rolls). The chicken itself was tender and juicy though. And I'll have to say though that I was kinda surprised at the Jalapeno chicken wings. Again, it's not standard chinese food, but the wings had a very distinct asian flavor that made them very tasty.

Included in our meal, was a container of wasabi sauce, which I didn't know what it was for... but Edmond did say that he was trying out new sauces for his menu.

All in all, I filled myself up on the appetizers so I wasn't able to eat as much as I thought. But that means I'll have leftovers to tide me over for lunch today:) I'm really proud of my friend for working hard at his new business. It's always been a dream of his to open up a restaurant, and it's good to see things going well.

This past weekend, Carolyn and I spent a straight 7 hours shopping up in Round Rock. It started out as a, "Hey we should visit IKEA on Saturday morning", and then metamorphosed into, "We might as well hit up the Round Rock outlet mall while we're at it." 

I should have remembered how long it takes to shop at IKEA. Even though you might know exactly what you want, you still have to navigate through the maze-like structure just to find what you're looking for. Along the way, you can't help but look at the home furnishings and get ideas for how you want to re-do your entire house. That, coupled with the strategic placement of their cafeteria "rest-stop" right before you get into the home decorations, there's no way to spend less than 2 hours in there.

Carolyn and I spent a solid 4 hours lost in the IKEA labyrinth but ended up with some good items. I got a replacement desk for my computer, we found a bar stool for our kitchen, and we bought some photo frames for our blank dining room wall.

Then, as if we hadn't done enough shopping, we drove next door to the outlet mall and spent another couple hours there looking at gifts and clothes. In the middle of it, I wanted to complain about how tired I was and just go home. I know Carolyn would have understood and agreed to go home, but she was really enjoying our time together. I was also reminded of how days like this are gonna become rare in a few weeks. In fact, I tired myself out assembling IKEA furniture this weekend as well. When will I have the time to do that again in the next couple of months?

Last week, I had a day started out not so great. I got in to the lab very early, ready to start the day. Within 30 minutes I was already overwhelmed by a number of things that I had to finish and accomplish. Coupled with the feeling that I am not ready to be a new father in 5-7 weeks, little things that I can usually handle quite well were easily blown out of proportion in my head. That morning I was also made aware that two big projects that I had worked on in the past few months were having ginormous problems. At that point I was ready to throw a chair out the 2nd story window.

But two things later that day brought encouragement in unexpected ways. First, I recieved word that I was the recipient of the UT Continuing Fellowship Award which will basically pay all of my research stipend next year. There are only 80-90 awards annually, and each department at UT is only awarded one. So that was a nice surprise. Secondly, Carolyn's co-workers had a party that evening which was a nice break from the craziness of the week. And though I don't really know her co-workers that well, it was a fun time being around people who care very much about Carolyn. It had been a long time since I had played "Taboo" and an even LOOONGER time since I had played "Pin the tail on the donkey". Yes, "Pin the tail on the donkey". Then later that evening we went out and hit a pinata. Normal, right?

I have a feeling that more of these ups and downs will come around pretty soon. That's a little scary.