So Angie and I are all about the traditions. They might not happen as regularly as they’re supposed to, but we both know they’re there and that’s the most important thing to both of us. One of my favorites originated amidst the stress of the fall of junior year – Friday wine & dinner night. I would come home from class at 4, we would enjoy a glass of wine, and then we would consult our Bloomington restaurant list and decide on a new place to try. There were some great restaurants (Finch’s), some purely fun places (La Torre), and others that were considered one-and-dones (Great Wall).
Thank goodness, classes this year haven’t caused enough stress to merit copious amounts of wine before, during, and after the Friday night meals, but we have tried to continue with our tradition. The first restaurant was Little Tibet, located in the thick of 4th street among the other noteworthy ethnic restaurants. After we strolled through the art fair (which had some really cool things; if you’re looking to spend a couple grand on Angie’s birthday gift, get at me – there’s a wooden desk she really likes) we sat down for a late lunch/early dinner at this place. The name is officially Anyetsang’s Little Tibet, and besides the fact that it has “the world’s jankiest bathroom,” as described by Angie, it actually had really good food. The prices were reasonable - $7-9 for a small-sized entrée that was the perfect amount of food for a mid-afternoon meal. I ordered the Temo Sha Tse (“stir-fried vegetables with our now-famous seasonings and your choice of beef, chicken, or tofu, served with temo”) and Angie tried the Sho Go Mo Mo (“vegetarian steamed dumplings filled with potato, green onion, yellow onion, and our secret seasoning, served with special sauce”). In all honesty, I can’t really tell much of a difference between one Asian cuisine and the next, so I think I need to keep trying them until I can distinguish distinct qualities between the various kinds. I think I speak for both of us when I say that the lentil soup that came with both of our entrees was our favorite part of the meal. Luckily we both had iced chai teas to keep us cool.
The most unique part of the meal was probably the temo bread that was served with my stir-fry. Unfortunately, the only way I can think to describe it is to compare it to a type of bread I tried in Ghana, and I realize that’s not very helpful for anyone who actually wants to know what it’s like. It looked like a thick dinner roll, but was soft and malleable, like partially cooked bread dough. It was really good dipped in the stir-fry sauce, but I wouldn’t have wanted to eat it plain.
Our restaurant list this year is currently about 20 places deep, so there shouldn’t be any lack of posts about our endeavors…stay tuned!
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