Daddy’s Little Dividend

Since the time we’ve began dating and even now 2 years into our marriage, the Pussycat and I have had a minor ritual we do about every 2-3 months. That ritual is known as Dallas. About every so often, we both start getting a little claustrophobic of our town and feel the collective need to skedadle. It’s not that our hometown is small, because really, it’s not. At over a million+ in the city and county, it is certainly not small-town USA. It boasts several great museums, decent food (Stonehorse, Flavors, Tsunami) and great recreational areas only minutes from our home. It’s just that to us, it feels small. I spent alot of years banging around the world and my scope of things is certainly out of whack with a normal person so I tend to ignore my wanderlust but thankfully even Pussycat gets the same itch to leave every so often … and really, who can argue with a Pussycat?

So when the itch comes, we scratch it for all we’re worth and head to Dallas, get a hotel room and stay for a weekend. Why Dallas? Well, to be simple, it just has everything we need. For the Pussycat, that means: Northpark Mall, Urban Outfitters, Nordstroms, Anthropologie and Papaya. For me, it means Half-Price Books, Kiehls and World Market. To those of you who live in huge cities, this may seem silly to care about those places, but like I said, Dallas has them and our town doesn’t. Plus, speaking as a husband, everyman should take his wife to those stores. I never care how much she spends … she just looks that good when she wears them.

Then of course, there is the food. Real food. The kind that your stomach gets on it’s knees and thanks you for after you eat it. We have very own personal truimvirate of gastronomy heavens: Pacuigo Gelato, La Duni’s and Maxims.

MORNING: MAXIMS DIM SUM
We have our visits down to a science. First, we hit town Friday night, get into the hotel and relax. The next day we get up and head to our first culinary delight: Dim-Sum at Maxim’s. Maxims is patterned after a Hong-Kong style eatery. You walk in this huge warehouse-style building and take a seat at one of the 200 tables. Then servers come by with carts and offer you course after course of dim-sum. You just take want you want and stay as long as you want. There is someone at your table with a different cart and taste every few minutes. If you’ve never had Dim-Sum, you have no idea what you missing. The picture above, is the Pussycat with her Veggie and Shrimp Shu-mai. Dim-sum is about the best breakfast food in the world. Basically, dim-sum is a eggroll wrapper with a filling in the middle and then steamed. Of course, I’m simplifying the description, but suffice to say, it is good.

This time we had 3 steamers of shrimp dumplings, 1 of veggie/shrimp shu-mai, 1 of bbq pork rolls and 2 of spicy veggie dumplings. As always, it was fantastic. We love sitting there and watching all the people. It makes the Pussycat rememeber her childhood which was much more Chinese than American due to her mother, Mao-Tse-Mama. For me, it brings back the nostalgia that I have for the Far East. We often sit there, listening in to the Mandarin and Cantonese getting flung back and forth. Of course, Pussycat understands it all, but I still manage to pick out a word in there sometimes. I really must practice my Mandarin again. Oh well.

AFTERNOON: NORTHPARK
After gorging on our breakfast, we head out and go the Pussycat’s favorite place, Northpark Mall.

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