The other day we took a trip up to Chinatown to get some dim sum at Triple Crown Restaurant.

Usually when we go to Chinatown we go to regular Chinese restaurants, but we’ve talked about getting dim sum for a long time. First off, the idea of getting many small dishes and trying all of them is awesome for anybody, but it’s especially awesome when you have kids. If they don’t like something, you just move on to the next thing. Second off, we have a copy of Dim Sum for Everyone signed by Grace Lin, one of our favorite author/illustrators. We’ve read it many times, so the kids are sort of familiar with the concept of dim sum, and were excited to try it. (Note that the title of the post refers to a different dim sum book by that name that we’ve read with the kids, so they’re pretty well versed in the concept.)

Well, all for naught, because Evie didn’t want to try anything. She was her usual picky self, and tried a couple of tiny bites that she was pre-disposed to dislike, and therefore wasn’t going to like no matter what. She wouldn’t even eat any of the plain white rice.

Not to worry though, because Ollie *LOVED* it. His love more than made up for Evie’s apathy. The two of them have always been night and day about food. Considering we’ve raised them more or less identically in terms of what kind of food we offer them, etc., I believe Sara’s comment was, “I guess it goes to show you, it doesn’t matter what you do, some kids want to eat and some don’t.”

Anyway, there’s probably nothing Ollie likes more than eating a bunch of different things. Well, there is one thing he likes more, which is eating with chopsticks. Holy smokes did he love that. Don’t even think of trying to take them away from him. He even manged to pick a few things up with them.

The only think Ollie didn’t like is when he burned his face off. Oh, the poor boy, I’ve never felt so sorry for him. He had a sesame ball on his plate, and we assumed, like an adult, he’d take a small bite of it. Instead he quickly crammed the whole thing in his mouth. It was HOT and he lost his poor mind. He obviously thought he could get rid of the burning by trying to swallow it down as fast as he could, rather than spitting it out right away. His face went nuclear and he started shaking like a convulsion. We got him to spit it out and swallow some water, but, I’m not going to lie, it was very frightening. He cried a little bit, and then immediately went back for the sesame balls. Oh, to be a kid again.

Overall, everyone thought it was pretty great, except perhaps Evie. She did, however, enjoy the giant fish/crab/lobster tanks covering one wall, so at least she had something to do.

There was one definite high point of the evening for me. I’m sure what Evie meant to say was, “Yon television program is displaying raccoons.” But what she actually did was point across the room and shout, “I see rats!” There might be worse things to shout in a restaurant, but I don’t know what.