You just made me very hungry.

I don't know the English names. This is in Panama and we use the Cantonese names like Siu Mai (shao mai in Mandarin), cheong fun for the noodles, Hampao for the steamed buns. The rest we make up in Spanish, like chicken feet (patitas de gallina) or beef intestines (mondongo).

One great advantage of Hong Kong style, is that they bring the steamer carts around and just open the lids and show you. Pick what looks appealing and try to learn the name for next time. Most of the waitresses speak very little Spanish anyway so knowing the name in Cantonese is helpful, and they are happy to teach you.

Haha, I had to think about that a minute.

Where are you in Panama ? I lived in Colón for 2 years when I was a little kid (4-6) back in the early 1950s.

Wow, small world! Right now I am in Panama City. The restaurant in the photos is in an area called El Dorado. My daughter lives here.

What in the world were you doing in Colón in the 50's, did your people work for the canal?

Got dem chicken feet.

Are dose chicken feet any good? My wife is Chinese and she's brought me to some excellent Chinese Restaurants but I have yet to try that.

Yeah I know, not really for an American palate, but I happen to like them. If you look closely, you can see them in the first picture.

"non-traditional parts of traditional meat animals"

Those dumplings look good. Time to order dingy Chinese food for dinner!

Oh I love em. So glad I grew up with a Chinese friend.

Delicious actually, and the sauce/spices they use are excellent. I poor countries we tend to eat more of the animal because there are more mouths to feed.

My dad was Cuban and worked for Coca Cola in Latin America. We moved back to Cuba after his stint in Panama, but then had to flee to Mexico when Castro came along, which is where I lived until emigrating to the USA in the 1960s. Both my parents are buried in Mexico.

Also, fyi all the USAians who worked on the Panama Canal lived in the Canal Zone, which was under US control. You couldn't find any of them in Colón, and everyone there spoke Spanish.

In my experience, California, near LA has exceptionally good Chinese food. Of course, i was taken to these restaurants by locals who knew the good places.

That is an amazing story. So you were born in Cuba, and technically Spanish was your first language. Cosa mas grande, chico!

Well, yeah, Spanish was my first language, but I also learned English in school and had plenty of English speaking friends. So when i came to the USA as an adult, I was already fully bilingual. I also have a reading understanding of French, and can communicate at a basic level in that language.

Today I was sick. And it is snowing again, forecast for another 10 inches by morning, maybe I can stay home and rest tomorrow.

Today I also disassembled another bicycle. Getting rid of things is hard, so these parts went into a tub while I procrastinate a while longer.

Today I tried to strip the paint from my rear wheel, even though Scrod implied it wouldn't work.

I just bought tickets to see The Sound Of Animals Fighting at Best Buy theater this Saturday... SCORE.
http://www.themonolith.com/wp-conten...-Fighting.jpeg

I grew up in Philly which has a small but awesome Chinatown. Haven't been to too many places in LA actually. Need to correct that one of these days.

Did he imply it was a dumb idea or that stripping the rim with out disassembly was dumb?

Today I finally ordered a sugino messenger crankset for my bike.

My pista knockoff cranks stripped out this weekend (first day of actual riding on them), my right pedal almost fell off the bike. Not happy.

Hah he said that I couldn't strip paintover paint without damaging the paint underneath. He was right, about most conventional methods of stripping the paint. However, I was able to get 90% off without damaging any part of the wheel or the original paint.

Today I picked up this...

http://i423.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps06a0b373.jpg

Thats a silly looking bike.

NDS photo.