Korean BBQ and Hot Pot (NYC)

I was awake at my usual Mommy-duty time, i.e. the crack of dawn, but spent another hour luxuriating before getting ready to meet my friend Sabrina in Times Square. I'm no city dweller, but I really liked being able to walk everywhere – had to borrow a hat, should have borrowed some gloves as well: once at my destination, I stopped into Starbucks for something to warm my hands. I usually try to avoid the place because I find they're usually staffed with incompetently slow employees, and this place was no exception, but there's not much choice when there's one on every block.

Sabrina is also one of those people I met years ago, 1997 to be exact (above, at Niagara Falls), ironically on a bus tour of the east coast, which included NYC, and have only seen a few times in the intervening years.

At the Chang-Kai Shek memorial in Taipei in 1998;

out for sushi (Taipei) in 2000;

and finally, having a mango tsua-bing (Taipei) when I was in grad school (2003).

Now she's married and has a son Dylan (above, the quilt that I made for him), about Z's age, and lives in Russia, a God forsaken place by her description. Her and the family were in the United States for a month-long holiday, and we were meeting on their last day before heading back. For lunch we walked over to a Korean BBQ place in K-town that Winnie had recommended: they ordered this *raw* beef salad appetizer, which I did not try; a spicy tofu seafood soup that I loved; some run of the mill Korean BBQ; and a couple other dishes that I'm familiar with but cannot name. My favorite, however, is the "little eats" (almost like dim sum or Western appetizer, but even smaller) before the meal and the refreshing barley tea.

By the time we came out of the restaurant, the snow had started to fall (though it wouldn't start accumulating until later that evening) and the wind had picked up a bit, so we were pressed to find somewhere warm. For convenience sake, Sabrina and I ended up sitting at the Macy's (near the Flatiron building) Starbucks for several hours, while her husband escorted Dylan and his nanny back to their rental. Though I'm sure we could never afford a nanny nor would I want someone else raising our children, I can definitely see the advantages (convenience) of having a babysitter on hand 24/7. Among other things, it allows a lot of time for adults to talk to adults. Eventually, I had to be going as I had made dinner plans with W to have hot pot. I was very sorry to have to part from Sabrina, but I have hope that they will come again next year and maybe actually visit our home in KC.

W has one of those divided pots to (typically) serve both a spicy and non-spicy broth in which to cook – should have taken a picture. Happily, just about anything can serve as a hot pot ingredient, though in my opinion, there are a few musts, which are harder to get just anywhere, namely, fish balls and enoki, that complete the meal. W had both: yum! And you know you're on the right track when someone has to open a window midway through the meal even though it's snowing outside. Speaking of snow, W and her boyfriend went to a bar after dinner (to watch a Georgetown basketball game) during the worst part of the storm, which ended up dumping about six inches on Manhattan. (The DC metro area got the majority of the snow the night before. I saw Bethesda had 23 inches total, and Arlington something like 18 inches.) I stayed in watching TV and surfing the internet, trying to predict whether my flight back to KC next day would be on time or not.