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Adventures in specialty grocery shopping
Feb. 9th, 2008 05:35 pmWell, for the first time since I started WW, I'm actually using some of my weekly FLEX points... I am, in fact, practically plowing through them. And the thing that did it? Filipino food. Oh... but it was divine (and really, that's what FLEX points were invented for). We headed down to the Great Wall Mall this afternoon to see if any of the stores carried Li Hing Mui powder (special thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tomte and gidgidonni for getting me hooked on the stuff -- and before anyone gets the wrong idea, it's actually ground up salted and spiced dried plums (Li Hing Mui was one of my favorite treats as a child) which is excellent when sprinkled on fresh pineapple). Little did we know that they were having a New Year's celebration at the mall... it was *packed*. I'm actually a little surprised we were able to find a parking space. But we did find the powder and, just down the hall, a Filipino restaurant, so it was definitely worth it.
As for the Filipino restaurant... it was wonderful! A taste of my childhood! We had lumpia followed by chicken adobo, and watched an extremely bizarre game show(?) that was being piped in off satellite. It was mostly in Filipino, with occasional lapses into English (honestly, not surprising... my friends from The Phillipines over the years often spoke like that at home). It had some sort of singing competition (which looked like a cross between "Name That Tune" and "Don't Forget the Lyrics" being played by young women who were dressed as if they were in an over-the-top beauty contest), plus trivia competitions which involved the aforementioned young women as well as people called up randomly from the audience... and then another stage of the game where a large group of people is read a statement (oddly, nearly all of them had to do with US landmarks or pop culture) and has to determine whether it is "Oo or Hindi" (true or false) and stand behind a podium displaying their answer. Money was awarded throughout the show. Really fascinating and surprisingly entertaining, even if we had no clue what was going on... I should probably try looking it up to see what I can find about it online (it was called "Wowowee").
Anyway, the food was great... but I now know for future reference that Chicken Adobo is about the least diet-worthy food on the face of the planet. I want to go back though and maybe have pancit, next time. It's been ages.
tomte and gidgidonni for getting me hooked on the stuff -- and before anyone gets the wrong idea, it's actually ground up salted and spiced dried plums (Li Hing Mui was one of my favorite treats as a child) which is excellent when sprinkled on fresh pineapple). Little did we know that they were having a New Year's celebration at the mall... it was *packed*. I'm actually a little surprised we were able to find a parking space. But we did find the powder and, just down the hall, a Filipino restaurant, so it was definitely worth it.As for the Filipino restaurant... it was wonderful! A taste of my childhood! We had lumpia followed by chicken adobo, and watched an extremely bizarre game show(?) that was being piped in off satellite. It was mostly in Filipino, with occasional lapses into English (honestly, not surprising... my friends from The Phillipines over the years often spoke like that at home). It had some sort of singing competition (which looked like a cross between "Name That Tune" and "Don't Forget the Lyrics" being played by young women who were dressed as if they were in an over-the-top beauty contest), plus trivia competitions which involved the aforementioned young women as well as people called up randomly from the audience... and then another stage of the game where a large group of people is read a statement (oddly, nearly all of them had to do with US landmarks or pop culture) and has to determine whether it is "Oo or Hindi" (true or false) and stand behind a podium displaying their answer. Money was awarded throughout the show. Really fascinating and surprisingly entertaining, even if we had no clue what was going on... I should probably try looking it up to see what I can find about it online (it was called "Wowowee").
Anyway, the food was great... but I now know for future reference that Chicken Adobo is about the least diet-worthy food on the face of the planet. I want to go back though and maybe have pancit, next time. It's been ages.
