Sunday is Funday! | Because I Say So!

Yesterday wasn’t just all about ear cleaners. No, that was just part of the fun that my friend “A” and I had on a jaunt to Chinatown for delectables at our “usual” restaurant, Pongsri. Before we got there, we made a couple of other stops, including one at Duane Reade for bottles of liquid refreshment. This was one of the choices (beautifully displayed by “A”, in true Carol Merrill fashion):

You’ve gotta admit that the bottle is pretty damned sexxxy. I blushingly commented on its possible alternative uses. I also decided the actual drink was probably about as effective as Red Bull. We passed, and settled for more sedate beverages in traditional containers.
Once at the restaurant, however, we bucked tradition! Get a gander at the dish we both got:

It’s pad see eue (the last word is pronounced like “ew”, which is a misnomer!). With tofu. Although the menu does not indicate tofu as one of the options (chicken, shrimp, or beef are offered), the waiter rewarded me for my boldness in requesting it. “Fried or soft tofu?” he asked with a charming smile, whereupon I overrode my usual concerns (tradition-bucking in action!) and chose the fried. So did “A”. After all, you have to live a little. (If I’d been with the DOG, we would not have ordered the same thing. If we did, then when he didn’t finish his food, I would not have any variety when I finished it for him. See?)

Because we are both ladies, we availed ourselves of the room designated for our use. By the sink was a big bottle of blue “body soap”. Apparently, as “A” pointed out, it wasn’t enough for the employees to wash just their hands before returning to work. (I had a flashback to a sign I saw many moons ago in a Chinese restaurant restroom that admonished EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS BEFORE RETURNING TO WOK. When the flashback was over, I was covered in blue suds, rolling with laughter on the Pongsri ladies room floor!)

We were quite full from our delicious noodles. Ordinarily we will get little treats from a Chinese bakery afterward, but we didn’t even suggest it to one other. I didn’t have the stomach for either more food or the Canal Street crowds, so we took a slight detour (I’m Queen of the Side Street!), and found this guy, who looked like he’d just had his share of noodles:

Notice the flurry of activity from one shot to the next. It was dizzying trying to keep up!
On our way back up Broadway toward Union Square, we stopped in Pearl River Mart. We wanted to try to hate it less than we did the last time we were there, but we failed. The old Pearl River Mart, on Canal Street, was a cluttered, haphazard, dusty-floored, three-story bazaar of the bizarre. Although it did attract quite a bit of tourist traffic, it was nothing like its new incarnation on Broadway — a grand, carefully ordered, shiny-floored, two-level tourist bonanza.
One of the best features of the store is its selection of Asian snack foods, both sweet and salty. But nothing — and I do mean nothing — inspires me to gales of laughter more than this:

You must read the fine print on the
bottom right corner of the left image!
Needless to say (but of course I’m saying it anyway), I couldn’t wait to get home to scan my Pocky, which actually beat out my suggested uses for the energy drink bottle in terms of salaciousness.
Oh, and we made several other stops, none of which were memorialized by my camera. (But you can visit the Sephora and Gap websites on your own!) All in all, a perfect Sunday afternoon. A pretty lady on my arm, delicious food in my stomach, and Men’s Pocky to scan!