Monsoon

It’s nice to walk away from a meal with unqualified happiness. We went to Monsoon the other night. Wow, what fun.

Two pieces of advice. First, order family-style. There are just too many flavors worth trying.

Second, order the catfish claypot. The thick gooey sauce that’s left over in the pot when you’ve eaten every scrap of solid food is so good you will burn your fingers scraping it out. On a table heaping with wonderful food, this was the standout.

We also had the dungeness crab and shrimp spring rolls (delicious), the drunken chicken (ditto), scallops (good), a salad with palmellos and candied walnuts in sesame oil (yum), snap peas with oyster mushrooms (crisp and tasty) and tofu with shiitake mushrooms (tofu ho hum, sauce exceptional). Incidentally, shiitakes are a particularly mushroom. And cultivators simulate thunder and lightning to make them grow properly.

Sadly my camera was at home collecting dust. Fortunately our friends had a camera phone. A different style of food photography – these shots look like they were taken through the warm, happy buzz of great food and wine.

That’s the catfish there on the left side of my plate.

Fantastic spring rolls – they tasted better than this looks.

A tasty salad.