It is all about food...

When traveling to large cities like New York and Boston, there are usually two main attractions - the city itself and the food galore they offer. Ping was recently on a road trip to the East Coast with a bunch of chinese M'sian friends. The main purpose of the trip was to attend Jay Chou's concert at Mohegan Sun, Connecticut but since we were heading towards that area of the State, we decided to do the rest - starting with New Jersey (which we only spent one night), New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

While Ping would have opt to try more of the local specialties and different types of cuisine busy cities have to offer, but a trip with M'sians who have not been home for a long time and craving for homecook food had us making more frequent trips to chinese restaurants.
The first was at New Jersey - our first stop. We drove straight from East Lansing, MI, passing by Ohio and Pennsylvania to get to New Jersey. The entire trip took us 12 hours. We could have arrived a little earlier if not for the traffice jam (which reminds Ping of Federal Highway during peak hours). We went to a restaurant serving both Chinese and Thai food and had the special treatment 'coz ZT knows the 老闆娘 pretty well - Golden Palace Restaurant, Kenilworth, New Jersey. Ping was pretty excited initially as we were just snacking on junk all day. The first dish was a huge pot of hot chicken soup...then came the curry chicken and tau eu bak (Ping's favorite!)..then the pad thai noodles (another one of Ping's favorite!)...then more dishes came flowing out. It came to a point when there are way too much food than all 8 of us can finish in an entire day! An entire table full of food!! This is definitely a luxury! Even harder to come by - an entire fish! With the head and tail! Now this is what we call real fish, as oppose to all those fillets we get from Meijer.

The next day, Ping took off by herself to New York to meet up with her lil bro at tiptup's apartment at Roosevelt Island. It was when Ping was in NY that Ping get to try non-Chinese food. Thanks to tiptup's recommendation, we went to the Five Guys for dinner. Totally American! Simple! They make really good fries too! The fries was super addictive that by the time Ping got her hotdog, Ping was half-full.
The next morning, tiptup and dk brought us to brunch at Queens. Like NYC, it is very cultural, with shops of Italian, French, Korean, Chinese influence. Ping can't remember the name of the restaurant we went to..although it has a very simple name that Ping was so sure Ping would remember it..anyway, Ping had spinach, mozerella and tomato toast - all three of Ping's favorite!! Don't ask why they serve fries with it 'coz Ping thought it was weird having fries for brunch too!!

After the brunch, dk drove us to Flushing to drop Ping off so that Ping can meet up with the gang. Flushing is a HUGE Chinatown! It is like Petaling Street. Like Chee Chong Kai. Ping missed out on the M'sian grocery store though. But we did go to a Korean bakery that reminds Ping of Jaya Jusco bakery. The photo is a little blurry since Ping took it without focusing as Ping wasn't sure if they allow photo-taking there. You know lah..Asian a bit more im chim one. Too bad Ping didn't stay long enough to try any M'sian food there. Seems like there are tons M'sian restaurants there.

We didn't try anything unique at Connecticut. Ping was too excited to see Jay to be sitting down and eating anything. The moment we arrived at Connecticut, Ping was already 'jae beh tiam' and 'chiak beh luk'. Hehe...just like when Ping was back in M'sia, waiting to see Jay for the first time!! Plus, we were in Connecticut for only two nights and a day and we spent the time sleeping most of the day after Jay's concert which was at 2am!!