Intrepid museum buddy L (who has a shiny new Marketing Analytics blog!) joined me for brunch today in Chinatown and then we popped in at the new Hudson Street Gallery. We visited local favorite China Pearl, arriving just before the 11:00 rush to the among the first seated upstairs. We had a sampling of usual favorites, notably shrimp and vegetable dumplings, and a couple of not so usual dishes, such as the crab claw:

How do you eat these, asked L. To be honest, I’ve never been really sure of the “correct” method, but I do it by holding them by the claw and eating the fried noodle-encrusted crabmeat like a seafood popsicle. I consider myself pretty handy with chopsticks, but the crab claw is beyond my capabilities.

Almost sated, we were looking around for one last morsel when I spied across the room a cart with one of my favorite dim sum items, but one whose name I did not know. It’s a dish of shanghai-style fried breat wrapped with rice noodles and sprinkled with green onions and soy sauce.

The limeduck crack research team has since determined that the name of this dish is Jia Luong or perhaps Zha Liang. Whatever you call it, it’s delicious. It’s a combination of very different textures and flavors, but the net effect is wonderful. After brunch, we picked up some Vietnamese iced coffee (chicory coffee with condensed milk!) and headed over to the Hudson Street Gallery.

I blogged about the Hudson Street Gallery last weekend at the August Moon Festival. Today it was much quieter so we were able to spend some more time with the work. HSG is gearing up for its actual grand opening on September 6 during the Asian Community Development Corporation’s Hudson Street Stories project. It’s an interesting story very similar to the better-known bulldozing of the West End to make way for Government Center. I hope you can all check it out sometime.