10/29/06 Hei La Moon, Boston. 10 of us!

Today a group of us went to Hei La Moon in Boston. We had not been in a while. One intersting thing was that they opened a basement level of the restaurant up. Looks to be larger then the original restaurant down there. We didnt sit down there but it made our wait for a table for 10 upstairs much much shorter. We got a great table right by the exit of the kitchen, this was ideal as all the carts were full and hot when they got to us.

We found everything to be great today, much better then we had remembered even. Some of the items we got: (multiples of each)

Shrimp and beef stuffed rice noodles, shu mai, har gau, shark fin dumplings, tofu skin rolls, congee, ribs w/ black bean sauce served over rice noodles, Yellow custard buns were perhaps the best ever, Egg tarts, steamed pork buns, baked flaky pork pastries, sticky rice in lotus leaf, fried shrimp w/ taro, fried shrimp w/ chive dumplings were twice the size as anyplace else, Taro dumplings w/ pork inside, fried calamari-always great here, snails, chicken feet, turnip cake, chinese greens w/oyster sauce,seafood in tofu skin, steamed shrimp/chive dumplings, and many others I cant remember or dont know a name for!

Total bill $140 w/tip. Cant wait to go back.

After the meal we walked to Rainbow Cafe for Boba Tea drinks. They had a good selection all made with ice cream and real fruit. I found the boba pearls themselves to be really too mushy though and too big for the straw. Perhaps we got the bottom of a batch or something.

Sichaun Garden Brookline.
4 of us went to celebrate a birthday at Sichuan Garden.

Waiter thought we were nuts ordering this much but we finished 90% of it.We got:
Hot and Sour soup - average nothing special

Pan Seared Pork Dumplings - typical pan fried dumplings, nicely done though, not too doughy or mushy.

Dandan noodles w/minced pork chili - strange version, the noodles were more like plain old prince spaghetti rather then chinese style. Less pork then i would have liked.

Sichuan pork dumplings w/ roasted chili vinagrette - spicy hot, not much filling. Same sauce as the dandan but w/o the pork.

Shredded camphur tea duck w/ spring ginger - This one I wasnt thrilled with. Alot of veggies not so much duck, not too interesting to me.

Stir fried chicken w/ spicy capsicum - Very good flavor, nice dish. A bit too much of the spicy capsicum. I sort of picked around most of it.

sauteed prawns w/ black bean sauce - very good version

panfried noodles w/ chicken - Better at a Cantonese place. Noodles are thicker here, really not their specialty.

Seafood hot pot. - very interesting. Fish balls,tofu, shrimp, glass noodles, scallops in a firey broth. We were not quite sure what to do with all the broth. Its almost like it should have been a soup. Had alot of whole Cumin seeds in it which im used to having in indian food or sausages. Took a bit getting used to w/ chinese food.

The hot pot was off the "secret" chinese only menu. They couldnt find an english version of it but apparantly at one time they had one. Id like to know what else was on that menu as that was my favorite dish. I knew they must have had hot pots and none were on the english menu so i just had them make me one.