Let's Go to the Mall, Everybody!!

Any HIMYM fans? No? Alright...

So last night, for date night, I FINALLY got some Chinese food! I have been craving it for ages now, and Kyle picked out a place that had great reviews just up the road in Laurel.

I was REALLY excited :-) xoxo

The place was in a sketchy-ish strip mall, but once in side there were several people placing take-out orders, which I always mark as the sign of a good Chinese restaurant.

We started with some hot tea and some plum wine to drink:

The tea was great, the plum wine not so much. We went with it because we were both considering cocktails that were mostly plum wine, and now I see why! It was very sickly sweet, made of grape juice, artificial plum flavor, and caramel as the main ingredients. I barely drank my initial pour. Blah!

Luckily, dinner was much better! For an appetizer we got the spicy chicken wontons:

The filling was a little chewy, but the plum broth was delicious! It had a lot of flavor without tasting salty, which I think is another mark of a great Chinese place because a lot of restaurants use sodium as their main flavoring agent. I split this with Kyle, having about 4-5 little dumplings (they were the size of a large grape).

Our entrees came, and Kyle got the chef special crab stuffed scallops in a spicy black bean sauce:

Now, those were not actually crab stuffed scallops; more like the scallops were in the middle of a light batter with shrimp paste. Non-the-less, they were tasty. Kyle let me have one... excellent black bean sauce!

I myself ordered my old-time favorite and stand-by chinese dish, Moo Goo Gai Pan:

Basically, Moo Goo Gai Pan is a dish of lightly sauteed (sometimes steamed) vegetables with chicken in a white sauce. This dish had LOTS of broccoli, carrots, snap peas, and bamboo shoots. At first I didn't like it because the initial taste I got was salty... not a good taste! As I ate, it went away. It was okay; the veggies were well cooked and there was not a ton of chicken, but I wasn't happy with the sauce. I ate almost all of the veggies, and had no rice after my crazy caloric lunch!

After dinner, we went home to have a nice, quiet date night at home for the rest of the night. I drank some more of the sparkling white wine from last night, and to commemorate Conan's last night on air, we split Kyle's leftovers from dinner (I had 1/2 cup rice mixed with black bean sauce, yum!)

When I woke up this morning, I wanted eggs. Problem? WE STILL DO NOT HAVE A FREAKING STOVE!!!!!!

So, I had to do what Kyle's Uncle Tom does... microwave them. I have not done this myself before, but I had to satisfy my craving, right?

The ingredients were simple, 1 egg and 1 egg white, a splash of milk, and then a chunk of this great soy chorizo from TJ's:

As a meat lover, I am surprised that this passed the test as being so delicious and worthy of being part of my regular cooking regime. I bought it for the first time ages ago when we were at TJ's and they had not regular pork chorizo. The first time I used it, it was in scrambled eggs and was delicious! It has a ton of flavor, and is low in fat, calories, and sodium.

I used about 2 tbsp of the chorizo, with all of the juices its packed in, and made sure to mix it, the milk, and eggs very well before microwaving it.

I nuked it for about 1.5 minutes, and it was very nearly cooked. I gave it another good stir, and put it back in for 30 seconds. Then, voila!

I topped the eggs of with some tomatoes, and had a banana and some milk on the side. Delish! The eggs look very brown because of the juices and seasonings from the chorizo.

A few hours later, Kyle and I decided we wanted to go down into DC to walk around, but wanted to have lunch at home to be 1) healthier, and 2) cheaper! I made us HUGE salads, that really hit the spot... we ate at 11:30, and I am still full at 5pm!

• Spring greens mix
• 1/2 cup of black lentils
• 1 TJ's pre-cooked chicken patty heated up on the forman
• 1/4 chopped red pepper
• handful of chopped grape tomatoes
• salsa
• sour cream
• humus mixed with hot sauce, sour cream, and salsa juice to make it more dressing-like

IT WAS SO GOOD. AND SO FILLING. The only change I would make is not to have that blob of sour cream. Aside from having it pre-mixed into the hummus, it didn't add much. The salsa, however, was great with the chicken!

After our HUGE lunch we headed down to DC, stopping at starbucks on the way:

I got a grande skim awake tea latte.... very, very good! I would get it again!

It took us almost two hours to drive downtown and find parking... we were seriously kicking ourselves for having not just taken the metro. I mean, honestly, it would have been a $4 roundtrip with no worry about parking meters. Stupid.

Anyway, we finally got there and decided to use our 2 hour parking limit to go to the botanical gardens and then walk up the mall.

So pretty! After perusing the gardens, we took an hour long walk up the mall and back to the car. It was a great day, not too cold when you were in the sun, and not very crowded walking around the mall.

Alright, off to recoup and then head out bowling with Jason and Lisa!