Seeing as how I love a good culinary adventure, I tagged along with the General to the suburbs seeking a woman that he said sells the best chinese dumplings out of her generic but new-ish million dollar home.

I couldn't pass up an offer like that, so we showed up at the house unannounced and proceeded to ring the doorbell. I did think it strange that this door had a metal gate on it not unlike the ones seen in poorer neighborhoods but figured they were just trying to be cautious. A voice from behind the door directed us to the garage door (everything was in chinese at this point so the General was doing the talking) and this is when everthing started to turn into what felt like a drug deal.

Apparently the home also doubles as a mahjong gambling parlour so three strange men coming to the door to them either meant we were cops or trying to pull off a home invasion robbery. The woman was sketched out at first, yelling at her son to lock the doors behind her and guard it but after some explaining the General eased her nervousness and we placed our orders. So, there we were standing in the driveway waiting and listening to the faint sounds of mahjong tiles coming through the walls while she went inside and brought out the bags of frozen dumplings.

There were varieties for boiling, frying, and steaming all packed 50 to a bag. We ended up walking away with at least four bags of the pale white meat packets and I have been eating them for three days since.

I have to say that they are fantastic and well worth the distance travelled but how we're ever gonna get them again is the big question. I may just have to get the General to go out there again to get me a 'fix' once my supply is gone.

The dumpling story did prove useful as a nice ice breaker when B and I went to a lunch meeting with one of the largest ad agencies in the world the other day. It made for a nice jumping off point for our conversation as we sat in their crazy spaceship looking building talking about what they do and what we do. Nice people although I still have no clue what exactly they do even after they showed us what they were working on. But they do handle some of the biggest household named brands on the planet which is a good or a bad thing depending on where you're coming from. I don't know what will come of any of this but they seem interested in doing something together although what that is has yet to be determined. One of the ladies did however invite us out to her place in Joshua Tree for a party in a couple weeks so I suppose the dialogue will continue there plus it will give us an excuse to go camping out there again.