Friday, March 14, 2008

a shot of dessert

Tonight's spur of the moment dinner was at PF Changs, one of my favorite Chinese-food-made-for-the-American palate (aka as authentic Chinese as you can go without scaring off the Americans). We had the PF Changs Spareribs (not shown), Chicken Lettuce Wraps and Fried Shrimp Dumplings (both shown below).

The ribs were finger licking good (although, PF Changs is probably not the kind of place to start licking your fingers at the table). The sauce was probably hoison based, and the meat was nice and tender, sliding off the bone with ease.

The chicken lettuce wraps were delicious, too. To make it more authentic, a side of hoison sauce should have been included -- oh wait, that's Peking duck, nevermind.

I was quite surprised that the fried shrimp dumplings (image below - up close and personal) were quite large in size. I was expecting dumplings that were about an inch and a half in diameter, but these things were almost two inches all around. I wasn't able to pop a whole dumpling in my mouth, which is what I normally do. I had to bite it and break it apart.

The "surprise" of the meal were the shotglasses full of dessert. We had asked for the dessert menu, and instead the waiter came by with this arrangement of shotglasses of various kinds of desserts ("I'm the dessert boy tonight, can I interest you in a shot?"). There were eight different shots, ranging from PF Changs Great Wall of Chocolate Cake to Carrot Cake.
To satisfy our dessert craving, we chose the Strawberry Cheesecake (shown below) and the Banana Sundae (shown above). For $2 a shot, it was a perfect size to quell the sweet tooth and not have any guilt associated with eating a regular slice of cheesecake or a whole banana split sundae.
All in all, it was a perfect portioned meal. By sharing three appetizers and having these smaller versions of the dessert, we had variety, we felt full and satisfied, and most importantly, we didn't feel like we had to throw up because we stuffed ourselves with too much food.

Next time I'm at PF Changs, I'm totally going to forgo real food and just eat the eight different shots of dessert.

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