Soup dumplings and studying; the blessing that is food in NYC; also, Pokemon emulators

After my long and arduous week of tests and papers that was Midterms Week, not to mention my unfortunately long Friday schedule (10 AM to 6:15 PM), I was exhausted. I particularly hate in-class exams/essays because I feel put on the spot and I blank and I end up churning out some atrociously written piece of work that I get back 2 weeks later and gawk at how terribly the sentences are formed and how I could have expressed that concept so much more clearly. I'm lucky these professors gave me practice review sheets for the exams. I actually just got back my Logic test and I got a 100! Even though it's only Intro to Symbolic Logic, I work really hard in that class and it's paying off. I'm the type of person that has never been particularly gifted in math, except for the "I'm good at memorizing how to do things" gift. I have not once read the textbook for this class, because it actually confuses me more than just seeing examples. Hypothetical math is not my deal, so I need to compact it and make it easy for my brain to digest.

Talking about ways of learning things, here's a Side Tangent: one time my friend and I studied for our Greek Mythology final by reenacting all of the myths as though they were a soap opera. Dramatic, but just funny enough to be memorable.

Anyway, I'm getting back to the point of this post: food. So my long and difficult week, blah. I had finally submitted my paper for my 60's class on Friday evening, comparing JFK and Obama, when I was invited out for soup dumplings in Chinatown with a group of friends. My introduction to these glorious creations came last semester when my friend Danielle and I gorged ourselves on so much Chinese food (a whole plate of bok choy, veggie dumplings, soup dumplings, some delicious rice thing...) I didn't eat the soup dumplings then because I'm not a huge fan of pork and there's really no vegetarian substitute. Little did I know what I was missing out on.

Our group went out to Joe's Shanghai. This restaurant is super famous. Tons of celebrities have been here, and their pictures with the owner line the walls. Having a group of seven people, we needed to wait a bit to get in. So worth it though. The minute we sat down, the waiter came over and asked us how many orders of soup dumplings we got. Obviously, they took it for granted that we came here for the dumplings, since it is their specialty. We got three orders (8 to an order) for the table of the pork and crab meat soup dumplings. Now if you're wondering, soup dumplings are an interesting food. They're not dumplings in soup. I once explained this to my dad and he told me I was making things up. They are actually dumplings with soup inside of them. There's a really specific way to eat them, too, so you don't burn your tongue and regret ordering them for the rest of your life because you can't taste anything for 3 days. I have provided this graphic (which they had at every table in Joe's) for your future soup dumpling enjoyment:


(Credit to Google Images)

So I did the nibble and slurp method to ensure the safety of my tongue and it was glorious. (I still burnt my tongue a bit because the soup was super hot, but it was, again, worth it.) I followed up with some classic chicken lo mein, which was appropriately greasy and good. It was a good meal to reward myself with for the trials of midterms I had endured. Here's some pictures for you to drool over.

 Pork and crab meet soup dumpling

 Chicken lo mein

Anyway, the rest of the weekend went by quickly. Sunday came along and I spent most of it out of the dorms at the LES Pickle Festival (yes, there is literally a festival for everything in this city). Who can say no to free pickles? Not me. For dinner, my boyfriend and I decided to revisit Pommes Frites, this shop that only makes french fries and specialty sauces. We had gone there over the summer, but had only gotten the free sauces. We got a Large, but they upgraded us to a Double for no apparent reason (not complaining, more fries). These fries are delicious. They're fresh-cut Belgian fries, served with any of their over 30 specialty sauces. (If you don't know what to pick, there's a website that tasted and reviewed all the sauces here.) We got ketchup (that's free) and then tried sweet chili sauce ($1.50 for a container). We sat at a table in the back that was open, rare for this hole-in-the-wall with like four seats. The tables have little holes to put your fries cone in. Cute. Expensive, but so delicious and so bad for you. Just the treat I needed after a long week.

Fries with ketchup and sweet chili sauce.

Besides my main topic of food, I wanted to explore the other great things in life. That is, online Pokemon emulators. I'm not a huge fan of video games. However, I, like many other college students, grew up in the world of Pokemon and maybe still hum the different theme songs of the towns to ourselves. A friend of mine found an emulator online to play all the games up to Crystal. I have not stopped playing Pokemon for a week. Consequently, I fall asleep to the songs and then dream about Pokemon. It's kind of an addiction. I've played Silver and Gold to death, so I'm trying out the remake Crystal. Only now when I tried out Pokemon Yellow did I see how old the technology and image are. But it's a remnant of my childhood that I'm not ready to let go of. Plus, I get really into the game and it's a good way to relieve some stress.

Erica