January 1-3, 2022
Now that we’ve left the party town of Scottsdale and resettled in a gentrifying neighborhood. Things are a lot quieter at night.
The lady who screams and slams the door at 3 or 4 in the morning is still at Howard Johnson. Traffic is quieter on West Van Buren than on East Indian School.
We had some modest fireworks on the sky around midnight, and heard a few more in the distance. There was rain during the night, so that may have dampened some of the celebrations. I expect it kept the drunks indoors.
We’ve also had a touch of colder weather—overnight lows in the 30s. According to one TV weathercaster, temperatures some nights were the coldest since 2019, which was an uncommonly cold winter and also the last time we drove out here.
I’m starting to see a pattern here. Joanna and I go to Santa Fe, and it snows and freezes. We go to Phoenix, and there’s rain and uncommon cold.
It’s not only uncommon cold, though, that follows us. It’s uncommon weather in general.
One summer, we went to northern Vermont and hoped to escape the heat of a brutal August in New Jersey. Temperatures that week near the Canadian border hit the 90s.
Museums, indeed just about everything except for restaurants and bars, were closed in Phoenix on New Year’s Day. I guess it’s like that in much of the world.
With nothing much to go out for, we stayed in for most of the day.
Google came up with the name of an eatery I hadn’t seen before, the Arrogant Butcher, at Jefferson and First Street, about a mile from the hotel.
I made a reservation online, mainly to confirm that the kitchen was open on the holiday. It’s a good thing that I did. It’s apparently a very popular spot. Most of the tables were filled, but they put us off in a comfortable corner right away.
The Butcher had oysters on the menu, so I knew what I wanted to have for a start. That and a white wine.
Joanna had a bowl of grilled salmon and black rice.
She had seen jambalaya on the menu, but didn’t want to risk ordering it, because it can be very spicy. That always gives her a bad reaction.
So I had the jambalaya. No question it was hot, and it made a terrific meal. That on top of the raw oysters made me feel that I could sing zydeco. The heat in the stew made that cool white wine a perfect match for it.
We had a date Sunday morning for Dim Sum back in Scottsdale. Not in Old Town, but farther north, in a neighborhood I didn’t know.
Kristin and Patrick told us we had to be at the restaurant, the Mekong Palace, when it opened at 10 or there would be a long wait for a table.
Joanna and I got there about 9:45, putting us first in line. Patrick, Kristin, Natalie, and Peter arrived soon after. By then there were already three or four parties waiting for the Palace to open.
By the time they started seating us, at 10 a.m., there were already enough people to fill most of the tables.
We were a party of eight, including Peter’s girlfriend, JoJo, and her father, Bill.
At dim sum, you order some of this, a little more of that. The food comes in small dishes that are placed on a carousel in the middle of the table. When something you want comes around, you take it from the dish.
We had gai lan (also called Chinese broccoli) and various dumplings, some with whole shrimp inside, others with pork, some with beef. There were stir-fried rice and a bowl of terrific stir-fried noodles. There was also lo bak go, turnip cake almost as good as the one that Joanna and Natalie made the other day.
This version was precooked and then grilled before it was served. Either I have developed a taste for lo bak go in general or, more likely, this was one of the best turnip cakes I’ve tasted.
I’ve had it a few times, but only enjoyed it twice, both times in the same week.
Jojo and Peter took off after the meal to go to a climbing gym. They are both freshman at Northern Arizona University. Early in his first semester, Peter organized a climbing team, which practices at gyms and on mountains.
Bill had things to do at home. The rest of us went grocery shopping.
The restaurant is inside a shopping mall called Mekong Plaza, which has the flavor of an upscale mall in Hong Kong, right down to a shop selling furniture, urns, vases, Buddhas, and Kuan Yins.
At the far end of the mall is an Asian supermarket. To get there we first had to pick our way through the crowd waiting for tables at the dim sum restaurant.
We were looking for ingredients that Joanna was planning to use for dinner on Monday. She was going to make mun gai: chicken parts (including the feet), gingko nuts, gai lan, and Chinese sausage.
There were also a couple of pomelos, which are favorites of Natalie’s.
Patrick and I took the groceries back to the house, while Kristin and Joanna went with Natalie who was shopping for a new pair of boots.
Monday Patrick and Kristin were working from home, but managed to work in time for a hike on Piestewa Peak. Not all the way to the top, but they were going farther than my knees can take me these days.
I walked with the crew through the streets. It was warm and the climb was uphill even before we reached the trail, although not impossible for me. I had a strong knee brace on and had a cane, so I was able to follow everyone into the easement that makes a shortcut to the park.
The shortcut takes you up a neighbor’s driveway and onto a path beside the house to the main trail. I got to the main trail and decided to hike back to Patrick and Kristin’s house.
I had sipped a little water on the way, and when I got back, I really needed more.
Later, when everyone came back, Joanna took a rest and then worked most of the afternoon in the kitchen.
The dinner she made is one of my favorites. Mun gai uses one of the tastiest forms of tofu, the soybean thread. That’s in addition to the mushrooms, sausages, gingko nuts, ginger, cilantro, and (I think) oyster sauce. It’s fantastic.
She also made fun see, a clear vermicelli-thin noodle made from mung beans, which is usually cooked with a vegetable. This time with squash.
Gai lan was the leafy green for the day.
It looked like a lot of food, but most of it disappeared.
I guess the take-away from all this is that, if you’re craving dim sum in Phoenix, you can head to Mekong Palace with confidence.
But get there early.
Love and best wishes.
Harry and Joanna
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