Chinese New Year gift box.

It contains extremely sweet candied fruits and nuts.

There are English words at the bottom of the yellow sticker:

“Extends new year’s greetings the gift box”

I understand the idea, but the words make no sense.

Will have to collect more of this treasures of confusion.

The Year of the Rat has started on February 7, 2008.

It is going to be a “rat” year according to some predictions.

My Chinese cousins tell me that the same symbol 鼠 is used for the rat and the mouse. Now it is clear to me why sometimes they call Mickey Mouse a rat.

Above is the picture of a calendar with a rat surrounded by pink mice.

We celebrated The Year of the Rat as usual, by eating out. One day early, to beat the crowds. Tomorrow we will celebrate again by eating at home. Steamed fish is my favorite. I like to eat a tail part.

My wife cooks a better fish as you can see below.

It also tastes super. We ate this one two days ago.

Today we had a family breakfast at the newly opened dim sum restaurant.

Dim sum is a traditional Chinese breakfast consisting of small dumplings and other small, bite size stuff to eat.

At the beginning my plate looked orderly and normal with vegetable dumpling, taro square cake and some hot sauces. I also ate the usual shrimp dumplings followed by not so usual baby squid, beef tripe and chicken feet. To help the stomach it is advisable to drink hot Chinese tea. I like the chrysanthemum tea sweetened with large sugar crystals.

Here are some chicken feet on a plate that is getting messier by the minute.

My way to judge the food is to wait half a day after eating it to see if any problems like wind, belching, cramps or other abnormalities develop. You can also anticipate good quality of ethnic food by the presence of the natives eating there. The restaurant is good. We will visit it again.

I bet you never heard of it.

Shown above on the left side of the plate. It is an Oriental seafood specialty that tastes like any other clam, but the shape is uncommon. The name comes from the shape of the traditional style shaving razor.