Christmans Party and Din Tai Fung

Who would know that SLS kind of having the tradition of going to bowling and Din Tai Fung as their Christmas celebration party? I just found out this great news last couple days when RSVP to the Christmas staff party. After figuring out the dumpling house they meant, I couldn't help but got so excited through out the weekend.

There is only one Din Tai Fung restaurant in the States, which is actually pretty close to us. Bowling is fun, but Din Tai Fung is even more amazing. I kept telling my boss and other staffs how cool Din Tai Fung is and how excited I am. Several friends also got my phone calls "showing off" that I get to go to Din Tai Fung for a big treat!

Twelve of us went bowling in the morning. Bowling to me is like a college activity. I still remember going bowling in the late evening, and then having night snack afterwards. When being a student, time doesn't seem like an important issue. We always feel that we have plenty of time to spend and going to bed early is not something to worry about. The friendship flowing between interactions probably is the most attracting thing in the late night bowling event for us. Those good old time...

Ok. back to topic. So, twelve of us divided up to three teams to have team competition. After the first round, our team got rewarded for 100 handicapped for the real game. Now you can get an idea how "good" we were. ISO has Sam, who is the expert of bowling. SLS happens to have "powered up" version of Carmen. We have Keith, the only guy who can help raise our point. However, when the second run started, our team started firing up! Strikes and spare kept coming. We laughed this was a team job and we prayed before the second run. At the end we were couple points less than ISO team. However, with the 100 handicapped point, we were the champion!

Din Tai Fung is right across the bowing place. People were all starved. The manager who helped us order kept giving ideas and pretty much handling the whole order process. In the middle of ordering, the manager told Ruth that Americans won't like chicken with skin on it, so they can just skip chicken soup, and order sour and spicy soup instead. " I want a chicken soup!" I can only find a little spot to yell out what I want as I see them going to pass it. The managered stopped and mumbled, "oh, Asian may like it." We had juicy pork dumpling, pork and shrimp dumpling, shrimp shaomai, shanhai fried rice cake, shrimp fried rice, fried green bean, bok choy, red bean dumpling and red bean rice cake. Oh, and my chicken soup which I had one and with one to go as well!

Not sure what made Allison started wanting to learn Chinese, we spent much time practicing writing "love" and speaking "I love you" in Chinese. There was even time that the whole table stopped and just listened to us. And I offered the explanation of my last name- eight thousand female ghosts, which was used by Allison this morning to greet me when she stepped into office.

Anyway. Din Tai Fung in the States not only fed my belly, but reminds me of my family. That was the first meal they took us to when we went back this summer. I thought about Dad's face during that meal. I think, as quiet as he was, he still loves me so he treated everyone with a great nice dumpling feast!