Happy Yom Kippur!

I guess that title really isn't appropriate as Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. But in our hospital we get the day off. So for us non-Jews who aren't on call, it is a happy long holiday weekend indeed. And what did my wife and I do on this Jewish holiday? We went to eat dim sum, of course.

It's not often we get to eat dim sum on a weekday, when the crowds are smaller as well as the prices. Our older one was in school so that is one less kid to worry about in a crowded restaurant. We got there at 11:30 and the wait was less than five minutes. Once we were seated, the usual orchestral movements of a dim sum restaurant appeared. In a good establishment, the carts quickly come to your empty table. We started picking all the foods we wanted: shau mai, shrimp dumplings, chive dumplings, chicken feet, fried radish cakes, beef meatballs, steamed pork buns, etc. Soon enough the table is overflowing with little dishes. Then we relax and start working our way through them all. One surprise I had on this trip was that my two year old son LOVES chicken feet. I was afraid he would choke on the metatarsal bones in them but my wife taught him how to gnaw away the skin around the bones. He was eating chicken feet like he had been doing it his whole life. They grow up so fast (sniff, sniff).

One by one the little plates got taken away. As the table got emptier, the stomach got fuller. Even though other tempting dishes passed us by, we couldn't look at another one. We were stuffed. This was quicker and better than any western fast food restaurant. When we left shortly after noon, there was already a big crowd waiting in the lobby. (One of these days somebody's going to notify the fire department about the crowds in this place waiting to be seated, especially on a weekend.) Time to think about getting back to work again.

If you are a dim sum lover in the Los Angeles area, you probably already know this restaurant. For everybody else, the place is New Capital Seafood Restaurant in San Gabriel, CA. Google it for their phone number and address. It is on the fourth floor of a large supermarket strip mall.