Notes on Food

I’m back on the Hilltop and already missing home. In my first class on Keats and Shelley, our professor (who by the way had a posh British accent) handed out Keats’ “On first reading Chapman’s Homer” and asked us to write about one rhetorical device that “contributed to the poem’s overall meaning.” EH? I’m definitely not in study mode yet, so that was quite the rude awakening.

I was organizing the pictures that I took over break, and when I got to these dimsum pictures, I was salivating. CHINESE FOOD I’M GOING TO MISS YOU. A-K was formerly known as 1-9 because it was located at the juncture of Routes 1 and 9. Yeah, the owners weren’t too creative with the original title; I’m wondering why A-K for the new one. Anyway, I laughed when I saw the new sign where they just taped over the original name.

They offer your typical dimsum dishes, and that’s what makes it so great, in my opinion. Hardly ever does my family order something new. We go to A-K because we have certain expectations and we know they’re going to deliver. For example, their honeycomb tripe with radishes is spicy and tender and every fried dish they serve is surprisingly light and wonderfully seasoned. I also suggest any of their delicate shrimp dumplings as well as the egg tarts. YUM.

For all those living near Edison (or Avenel where it’s actually located) or somehow visiting (though there’s really not much here except ethnic restaurants and malls), I’d highly recommend it.

 

A-K Seafood Restaurant (a.k.a. 1-9)

1021 Route 1-9, Avenel, NJ

In Edison, there’s only one dimsum place that my family goes to – 1-9 Seafood. Their food is consistently good, service is decent, and if you get there early enough, the wait isn’t too long.

Today though, since it was Father’s Day, every seemed to have the same idea about brunch and when we got to the restaurant it was a 45 minute wait, longer than we’ve ever had before. My sisters and I amused ourselves by watching the Japanese-style reality show on the large-screen tvs, where poor contestants had to climb rolling piles of logs and vault their way over giant ponds. As each one of them smashed their faces into the ground or fell into the water, the entire restaurant would break out into fits of laughter and forgot about their food. I guess that’s why management changed the channel to CNN shortly afterwards.

Food-wise, there were new items that I’d never seen before at 1 and 9 – most of them lightly fried like soft shell crabs and baby squid. They tasted almost exactly the same as the fried frog legs they serve during dinner but were still quite delicious. It’s pretty hard to make anything deep-fried in flour, salt, and pepper taste bad.

Fried soft-shell crab

Fried calamari

Old favorites like shrimp in rice rolls, shrimp-stuffed eggplant (or is it the other way around? I’m too full to really care), and tripe with radishes were also present and met expectations but disappointments, however were the spring rolls, which had barely any filling at all and just oozed grease the minute I bit into one of them and the not-so-fresh-or-hot shumai dumplings that I ate anyway.

Stewed honeycomb tripe with radishes

This isn’t a dimsum item but I highly recommend it anyway: lobster pan-fried noodles. Yes, it’s hard to eat but that wonderful sound when you crack into the crispy noodles and smother them in the lobster sauce is simply music to a food-lover’s ears. A lot of restaurants have something similar, more likely with all different kinds of seafood like scallops, squid, octopus, etc. Try it next time if you see it on the menu!

Lobster pan-fried noodles

Dim sum spread