I am all packed up and ready for Australia. It still hasn’t quite set in that I’ll actually be in Darwin in less than 48 hours. What?

Since it was my last night in the city for a couple of weeks, Chris, Paige and I all headed home early to have dinner together. I took the 5:00 shuttle rather than the 7:00 shuttle.. and it ended up taking me an hour and a half to get home. How is the Bay Area traffic so wonderful? (To NHS and Sam: That was that sarcasm thing. :P)

When I got home though, Chris, Paige and Raleigh were all waiting for me! We were originally intending on cooking in our kitchen for the very first time — Chris and I even put almost everything away so that you could ACTUALLY SEE THE COUNTERS (it was the very first thing Paige commented on when she got in). However, we were all a little tired, so we ended up going to Fang instead.

So anyone who knows me knows that I can be pretty picky about Chinese food. It’s just what happens when you grow up only going to the best authentic Chinese restaurants. 🙂 So it’s a pretty high compliment when I say that I was totally impressed! Fang is apparently somewhat famous for their chef, who goes around to all new customers.. and asks them if they have any food they can’t eat for either religious or allergic reasons.. and then proceeds to ask them to trust him to take care of them! We were initially a little bit wary since we had already picked out what we wanted to order and were quite pleased with what we had decided, but we decided to be a little adventurous and go for it. Plus he was just /so/ adorable! I’m kind of obsessed, and want to take everyone there to experience it!

We started out with shrimp potstickers, which I proclaimed almost as good as my dad’s. Once again, high compliment! Then there were portobello mushrooms with some sort of wheat berry-ish thing that I totally did not expect to enjoy. I tend to not like portobello mushrooms too much, but these were excellently prepared. Next there were the main dishes — crispy beef shortribs and honey prawns with crispy apples. Both were absolutely delicious and not quite like anything I’d had before. The shortribs were almost breaded and had a really interesting crispy texture that was as delicious as it was unexpected. The honey prawns were like typical walnut prawns (one of my absolute favorite dishes!) but the apple was a new touch that I’d never had before. All in all, the meal was excellent and there was the perfect amount of food. We all left very satisfied, claiming to be back again soon. Luckily it’s only a few blocks away from our apartment, so that will be an easy sell!

We then headed back and finished off the last of our Honey Lavendar ice cream from Bi rite in my adorable little Anthroplogie latte bowls with Paige’s espresso spoons. I think we gushed so much about how cute they were that Chris felt like he should be using a bigger bowl and spoon. Haha! But he ended up not doing so, because the bowls and spoons are really the perfect size for a scoop of ice cream. 🙂

It was pretty much the perfect dinner/dessert/night!