January 3rd 2014: Dinner with Friends at Mandarin Malden

Today after work, my friends called me out to dinner at a pretty new Chinese restaurant that just opened up at 74 Pleasant Street in the town of Malden, called Mandarin Malden. This place is pretty small, and does not even have tables big enough to hold 10 people, which was the size of our party. We were forced to sit at a collage of rectangular tables, which ended up having little space for the tons of food that we ordered.

We got the Hot and Sour Soup,

the Seafood with Winter Melon Soup,

the Scallion Pancakes,

the Chilled Spiced Beef Tendon,

the Peking Ravioli,

the Stinky Tofu with Chinese Basil,

the Pork Kidneys with Scallions,

the Roast Beef with Hot Chilli Peppers Rolled in Scallion Pancake,

the Ma Po Tofu,

the Oyster Pancake,

the Lion's Head Meatballs,

the Ko-Cha Special,

the 3 Cups Chicken,

the Shrimp with Lobster Sauce,

the Spinach with Garlic,

the Flounder Fish Fillets with Tofu,

and the Pork with Bamboo Shoots.

We started off with an interesting appetizer of pickled cabbage, which was pretty good, although my friend complained it was not pickled enough.

Then came the food, one after the other.

Of the food, only the stinky tofu and kidneys were no to my liking, as they had really strong ammonia aromas. Other than that, I felt the food was pretty good, although apparently it is not as good as Shanghai Gate in Boston. To end it all, we were given Red Bean Soup desserts, which was a little sweet with few red beans to be found. I still drank it all though, a contrast to all the salty food we just had.

After dinner, we headed to my friend's place nearby for some Texas Hold'em Poker, which I lost terribly as always, and danced equally horribly with their XBox Kinect system. My friend had a dog that looked really similar to one I used to have back home, and I had a fun time playing with it.

With that, a fun time of hanging out with friends came to an end. I look forward to dog sledding tomorrow.