On hiatus until the end of August

Photo by Amy Humphries

Hi everyone, 

I’m taking a short break from blogging, and social media until the end of August to work on remodeling my three websites: Homa Pourasgari, Linbrook Press, and The Dawn of Saudi. I will also be doing research for my new book project as well as making a new book trailer for the revised edition of The Dawn of Saudi. See you all soon.

 

Dim Sum 

My Chinese friend who speaks Cantonese, and is from Hong Kong, introduced me to Dim Sum long ago, and we used to go to the Empress Pavilion in Chinatown until it went out of business. Dim Sum is a Cantonese cuisine and is served in small dishes. There are a lot of Dim Sum places where you can order off the menu, but not many restaurants have pushcarts and give you that authentic traditional experience. I was so excited when she found Five Star Seafood Restaurant in San Gabriel. We started coming here before Covid and continued to dine here during Covid. In fact, I used to frequent many Chinese shops and restaurants during Covid. I know that many narrow-minded people discriminated against the Chinese community at the time, but the thing is, I have zero tolerance for stupid people.

 

Five Star seafood is inside a strip mall. I love coming here because the food, the service and the ambience is amazing. I love the Chinese community. In fact, you hardly see too many non-Asians here. If you find your way here, you will notice that there are some people in the shops and restaurants that do not speak English. But do not worry. You can follow my lead and mime your way into communicating with them, or make friends with a Chinese friend and bring them along. But seriously, I have been in the Chinese community on my own and had no problems figuring my way around, except for in Hong Kong, but that’s a story for another day.

Long ago, the emperors wanted to experience how their people lived, but they couldn’t just go out into the public sphere. So, they wore normal clothes and asked their servants to go with them, and make it seem like they were friends. But even so, the servants were afraid of the emperor. When the emperor would pour tea into their cups, his servants were not allowed to bow to him in public and give away the emperor’s identity. Instead, they would make a bowing hand gesture. Nowadays, when you’re in a conversation, and your friend pours you tea, instead of interrupting the conversation by saying thank you, you make a hand gesture.

So, like I said, this place has various pushcarts as they go around and you can look and choose what you want. Sometimes there are lids on top of the food, and you can ask your server to remove the lid so you can see what’s inside. They also have a menu, but if you want to experience Dim Sum, you should order it from the cart. Each time you choose something, they stamp a white card that they put on the table, and at the end, they tally up and give you a bill. It’s best to come to this place with your friends in even numbers because it’s easier to share the food since it comes in fours or sixes. Also, on a clear day you will see beautiful views of the mountains.

 

The earlier you come here the better – it’s less crowded, and Dim Sum is really a brunch experience. During the week it’s quieter than the weekends. I’m not a morning person and honestly don’t feel like eating shrimp at nine in the morning. This time around, we made it here at 10:30 on Saturday, and my friend was complaining that we should have come sooner. But it all worked out fine. Finding parking was not that bad, and our entire wait time to get seated was no more than 7 minutes.

As you can see, the food is fresh and piping hot. If you are a strict vegan, vegetarian, or have allergies, you may want to order from the menu because sometimes they tell you something doesn’t have meat in it and it does. At my house, I am mostly vegan, but when I go out, sometimes restaurants makes a mistake and a piece of meat or chicken makes it to my plate. I don’t fret. I’m vegan/vegetarian because I care about land and sea animals. And except for things that are cooked alive, or creatures that have been tortured before they become food, if a friend of mine wants to share something, I do it.

If you are not sure that you will like the food, everything I have included in my photos are excellent. The above picture from the top is custard tarts, stuffed cabbage, and black sesame seed balls. Make sure you get the hot sauce/mustard mix because it adds a lot flavor to the food. The pushcart lady told us that the stuffed cabbage was vegetarian. We tasted it. It was not. My friend is a carnivore and ate the stuffing. I ate the cabbage. So, it was all good. The black sesame balls, my favorite, are sweet and come as a whole, but you can ask them to cut it in half for you. The custard tarts taste different than the western version of custard, but they are delicious. And I understand that you may want to have dessert after you eat, but different carts have different items, and sometimes, it’s hard to get a hold of your favorite cart, and some popular items run out. Then you need to wait awhile until another order comes around. So, my friend who knows what’s popular, usually grabs things right away.

This is green tea with Chrysanthemum. It’s a special order and not everyone knows it, but I highly recommend it. Even the staff sometimes doesn’t get it right and brings you two separate pots, one of green tea and one of Chrysanthemum. So, tell them to combine it.

Fried shrimp balls.

Shrimp rolls which we usually get, and fish curry. This was our first time ordering fish curry and I wasn’t sure how it would taste, but it was good. It’s not fishy at all, and had my friend not told me what it was, I would have thought that I was eating some kind of chewy vegetable.

Stuffed vegetarian roll. Yummm…sometimes they have meat in it, and I give it to my friend. This one was stuffed with vegetables.

Steamed shrimp balls. This is a popular item, and sometimes you have to wait awhile before it makes it to your table.

This is Chinese Broccoli and is much better than the regular Broccoli. Two thumbs up.

This was interesting to eat. It has shrimp in the center and the part that’s sticking out is not part of the shrimp. It’ sugar cane, you can chew on it, and it tastes slightly sweet. They also have plenty of meat dishes at this place if that’s what you like. Go ahead and try them. I’ve been here with a large group who did eat meat and they told me that everything tasted really good.

Uji, The Tale of Genji Museum, and Murasaki Shikibu

I did a few off the beaten path excursions in Japan. Before my trip, I accidently came across a book titled The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. Her work is referred to as the world’s first novel. And I just had to read it. So, I bought the 1200 page or so book and began reading. Unfortunately, I could not finish it because the Protagonist, Hikaru Genji, has no redeeming qualities, and I didn't care about what would happen to him as the story unfolded. I laughed so hard when I read someone’s review on Amazon: “look, I read this book for class...all you need to know is that Genji's a ho.” A blunt review, but not far from the truth. Also, I would not call this book a novel because there is no story, but rather a series of sentences strung together. Apparently, the last third of it was written by someone else. Of course, this book has been translated to English. Perhaps if I was able to read it in its original archaic language, I would have liked it??

Nevertheless, just the fact that Murasaki was ahead of her time and decided to write a novel impressed me. I also gained some knowledge about her as a lady-in-waiting, the Hein period, and the aristocratic life in the 11^th century Japan.  So, I decided to stop by Uji on my way to Nara to visit The Tale of Genji Museum. Uji is a beautiful city also known for their high-quality green teas.

My tour guide, who took me there, didn’t know anything about Murasaki and didn’t care. He said, “It’s a girl thing.” But later, as we visited different temples, he realized her importance in the Japanese society. When we arrived at The Tale of Genji Museum, he simply went to sit somewhere and didn’t want to bother to go through the museum with me. There was an English audio guide, but it had technical difficulties and wasn’t working and the explanations were in Japanese.

The above photos are scenes from the novel. It’s about Genji, the women he courted, and life during that time period.

There is also a small library and a shop. I bought a few of the photographs which depict Murasaki during different seasons.

Uji is worth a half-a-day trip even if you are not interested in literature. There are small tea shops, a lovely scenery, the Byodo-in: a Buddhist temple, and tea plantations.