Holy dumpling date!

It isn't often that GC and I get a chance to get out and enjoy the New York night life (lately) mainly because it is expensive and we've got a lot of expenses in the next two months- which we are definitely not complaining about! Last night we went out to New York hot spot Chinatown Brasserie. We've been trying to go for ages (GC went once and fell in love, now it's my turn!) and finally made it there last night.
This place is known for their dumplings. I've never had them, but we ordered two kinds of dumplings. This was all in the "let's get Emily to try new foods" events which, I have to admit.. I've been getting a lot better at. I sorta eat red meat now, so it's a step in the right direction. The first set of dumplings were pork dumplings that were what I think baked into this sorta puff-pasty style. I tried it... that was good for me. I let Giancarlo polish those off. The other set of dumplings that we ordered were a pork/shrimp mix that were wrapped in the won ton paper with a broth inside. There is a traditional way of eating these (which I learned last night) They give you soup spoons in which you put the dumpling on, and then with your chopsticks, you poke a hole and let the steam come out and sip the broth.. then eat the dumpling. Quite the activity!

We also decided if we're going to go out, we're going all out... therefore DESSERT! Again, in the spirt of "trying new things" we picked the only thing that we didn't understand on the menu.. Cinnamon bao. What the heck is a "Bao" well ... we found out. Here is a picture of these tasty little nuggets. Inside there was a frosting-custard cream. It was like little miniture Cinnabons with frosting inside. Little perfect pastry puffs of heaven.. really, need I say more?!

(my apologies for busting out stock photos. Sadly, it was too dark inside for me to take good pictures)

My fortune cookie read: EXCUSE ME
lucky numbers: 4. 22. 32 12

www.chinatownbrasserie.com
380 Lafayette St. New York, NY 212.533.7000