purply mush

no lunch yesterday. went to xintiandi - a nice little french restaurant - aptly called NICE.
but today i'm back.

sigh. it just doesn't get any better than this. ayi works so hard on plate presentation - even wipes the bottom of my water glass w/ one of my happy bunny miffy tissues. why does everything need to look so dang cutesy here? even tissues!

but then, it all basically comes down to this, don't it?
first time today - i got shelled soy beans - da dou - which i loooove. but i had to pick thru the slimy purpley/brownish chinese eggplant and zhu rou so finally chopped i couldn't eat around it. throw a few whole cloves of garlic in there and you've got lunch. oh yah. don't forget about the brown sauce. basically made from dark brown mushroom sauce, sugar, and a little chicken flavored msg.

i ate the soybeans today. i think there were about 20 of them. it is a challenge w/ the chopsticks - so i got a bit of a workout