no, they aren't undercooked.

i am no longer a soup dumplings virgin, thanks to a fun lunch today with tater, monkey, and lilcee. mmm!

we met at mei long village in san gabriel - lilcee and monkey were both there already, but at different tables. hee! we opted to sit at lilcee's table, because it was bigger and right in front, but as soon as we got settled, the grumpy waitress barked at us to move to a smaller table. i was too scared of her to protest, and we ended up in the same area as monkey's original spot.

a couple of minutes later, tater arrived and then we placed our order. and by "we", i mean lilcee and monkey. all may LOOK same, but all sure as hell don't speak same. and not much longer after that, these arrived:

(i didn't take this picture, but someone else on google images did)

we had two kinds - the "regular" shanghai dumplings and crab & pork dumplings. after listening intently to the instructions on how to eat these little bundles of happiness, i scooped one up, dipped it into the ginger/vinegar mixture, and took a bite.

and fell in love.

i tried both kinds, although they tasted the same to me. and that's a good thing, because they were oh-so-scrumptious! i could probably have eaten more, but i didn't want to look like a little piggy. heh.

it was the usual fun chit-chat and laughter, but it was a "mini-me" sort of GTG, since monkey and tater both had to get back to work. boo. but it was still fun, and on our way back to our cars we stopped in at beard papa's for some cream puffs. how lucky for us that it was in the same plaza! and i found it comical that there were THREE places within feet of each other that compete for the soup dumplings crown.

when i got home, i tried to explain the soup dumplings to the hub:

me: "they're really delicious, a lot like dim sum."
hub: "oh. yum. what are they exactly?" (obviously, not a fan)
me: "they're these little dumplings, and you bite into them and there's yummy soup inside."
hub: "SOUP?? are you sure it's not just undercooked batter or something? why is there SOUP in there? that's just weird. that sounds nasty as hell. i bet they're raw and you're gonna get salmonella and..."
me, fully exasperated: "i'm taking the bean to change her diaper now."

tomorrow i get to have dim sum - making up for the lost dinner with r and k. we're going to house of louie, which is far from the hordes of siu mai and cha su bao of alhambra/san gabriel/monterey park, but it's not bad. and it's close to home. fabulous.

and, i have a totally random, totally off-topic request for those of you who know me "in real life". working on our wills and living trust and crap like that got me thinking about part of the reason i blog to begin with - my girls. i've never shown it to the kid, partly because i love to drop the f-bomb and other fun words in here. but if something were ever to happen to me, will someone out there make sure she knows it exists? not that i think i'm the most captivating writer that ever was, but it might be fun for her to peek into her weird mom's head and see what i was thinking, how i saw things, and most of all, how much i love her, the bean, the hub, my friends, family, etc., etc., etc. i think she knows how much i love her, mainly because i tell her every time i see her, and plant big fat kisses on her when she's not expecting it (which usually results in squeals of "moooooooom!! omg, someone could be looking!"). anyway, that's my request. um, thanks.

and, to end this post on a lighter note, here's a new picture of the bean. gotta love the tee:

heh. i don't even really like oprah that much, but the shirt was a gift. the hub just rolled his eyes, as i'm sure y'all are doing.