Monday, January 26, 2009

Hot Pot and Hot Rock

Happy (Chinese) New Year, Everyone!

J10X , Marko & I celebrated a little early by going to our friend Hsin-yi's house for her & her husband Chris' fabulously fun New Year's party. They have a lovely older house (built in 1901) in New London that was just crammed with people! Hsin created a cocktail for the evening (lychee 'martini') that I quickly & obscenely dubbed the Testini. It was all about the lychees....

The fantastic food was hot pot - I've heard Tony Bourdain touting this for years as a quintessential Asian comfort food, and I've always been dying to try it. They had seafood, meat & (thankfully) vegetarian hot pots set up. Hot Pot is basically a kind of broth fondue in which you cook the various elements. I had fried taro, watercress, rice noodles and various other veggies - so delicious, and you make your own 'sauce' with the condiments, such as a type of barbecue sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce and I scored the big bottle of hot sauce from Hsin's mom for the table. It was a bit of a juggle 'n' squeeze to get around the table, but very fun.

So, after feasting & drinking far too many Testinis, we headed over to Groton to Rosie's Cantina to see the fantastic Cobra-Matics! The opening band was Brokedown Serenade, who were a very new (as in rough around the edges) rock/rockabilly band. The Cobra-Matics were awesome, as always, playing their very snappy mix of rockabilly, swing & blues. I scored two hugs from the Colonel (awww) and we picked up their new CD - go get it! The Colonel told me he sold a bunch of equipment & things to put it out, and his heart is really into this band- he can't say enough nice things about his band mates, which is just super cool to hear. They sound great, look good, wear matching suits onstage and all have terrific posture.

The only irritating portion of this show was some total idiot who didn't get that I really didn't want to dance. And then he must have thought if he got in my face & told me we were pussies for not dancing, that maybe I'd find that charming. But before I could tell this guy I was going to kick his fucking head in, my hero, J10X stepped in and told the guy to leave us alone. This resulted in J10X getting a death threat (!!) from this guy, who didn't look like he could punch his way out of a paper bag. Well, there wasn't a fight, but it was close...

Hey-ey, neighbor,
'Gansett is good for you
Hey, Narragansett,
Rhode Island's famous brew!

5 comments:

C. Margery Kempe said...

Rockin' -- he should have known better than to get in your face. What a moron. Go J10X!

Mmmmmm, hot pot. Sounds like a wonderful party and yummmm, 'tinis!

CL said...

I've been very interested in hot pots and would like to try them.

How do we go about it? It's a good excuse to get together during the winter!!

hint, hint ;-)

PS, I would host one for my birthday.

The Queen said...

I'm really tired at my age of having to be in a position of having to tell someone I'm gonna kick their ass... ridiculous.

Cranky- I think birthday hot pot sounds fantastic!!

Hsin-Yi said...

If you told me you were gonna kick my ass, I would truly be scared. Maybe Lychee Martini's/ Testini's are trouble makers...

The Queen said...

See, Hsin, you have a brain and would probably just stop asking after the 3rd 'no thanks, I don't want to dance...'
Maybe the Testinis made me a little more...testy... than normal... :)

So, the moral is, I shouldn't have left your party.