Having my wisdom teeth removed last week left me not only looking like a chipmunk and chewing soft foods (and vicodin), but also a little more … stupid. First, after finally replacing my broken scanner, I decided to digitize my entire file cabinet, which entailed scanning all my forms, bills, and receipts, and having to shred the knee-high stash of paper left by said endeavor. I also decided suddenly to Ebay off a bunch of old stuff in my apartment, like my DVD collection (to make room for future Blu-Ray discs, of course) – only to realize that after the fees, commissions, and shipping costs, I was left with a net profit of just about $2-3 per disc. Yet it was not until today that my stupidity reached its nadir when we made the ill-fated decision to drive out to Danvers to pick up our free anniversary cake on Patriot’s Day, the day when Sox fans, Bruins fans, and Boston Marathon runners pour into the streets to enjoy the spring weather while ruining any attempts by drivers to navigate the roads by automobile. Ironically, our anniversary is not for another 3 weeks. Nevertheless, being stuck in traffic under the afternoon sun did remind me that tennis season has returned, and I’m ready to enjoy the outdoors again.

Coming out of my honors thesis defense this afternoon felt like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after his duel with Bruce Lee – like mud. What I thought was going to be a pleasant half-hour Q&A session turned out to be a full-on 2-hour grilling session, as I tried to deflect questions even tougher than those from my PhD defense two years ago. At least now that the battle is over, I’ll get to enjoy true senioritis until internship year (a.k.a. “the storm”) hits in June. Besides running a few errands and getting some freelance work done, I’ll also continue embarking on Captain Picard’s Season 1 adventures and resume my movie list, including Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, which despite the lookalikes and cardboard cut-outs to make up for the star’s untimely death, still retains its moments of guts and glory. Hiiiiyah!

To celebrate the last birthday of her 3rd decade, I took Melody to L’Espalier, where the 6-course Spring Degustation lunch menu sent her into dreamy-eyed contentment. The meal began with an amuse bouche: a duo of spring radish soup with sherry vinegar mignonette and Skip’s Island Creek oyster shooter topped with Italian caviar. The oyster was fresh and briny, but the soup was a tad sour. Next came a “B.L.T.” for her (lobster salad, tomato, smoked bacon and avocado butter on toast) and a parsnip and cepe (tasty, earthy mushrooms) flan with balsamic caramel for me. This was followed by her pan-seared skate wing on Chantenay carrot puree and my Ricotta and spinach ravioli in a sweet onion broth. Compared to my only other experience with skate wings in Paris, which was rather uninspiring, this chef’s take on it took the fish to a whole new level. The 3rd course was a rare but salty grilled hanger steak with pommes frites and a dreamy mushroom risotto with asparagus. Melody then went into raptures over the cheese plate, which included the Lakes Edge goat’s milk cheese from Vermont (mild but yummy), Pecorino Ginepro from Italy (salty but tasty around the balsalmic and juniper berry-rubbed edges), and Big Woods Blue (in your face with a spicy kick). These were paired with condiments of preserved plums, pine nuts in honey, and golden raisins in liqueur. Dessert was a trio of hazelnut praline cake, buttermilk lemon zest panna cotta with blueberry compote, and chocolate decadence cake with chantilly cream and raspberry. The decadence cake was so out-of-control intense, finishing the thing felt like a battle against chocolatiness itself. Luckily, some Earl Grey soothed our palates. Definite recommendations: the cepe flan, the skate, the risotto, and the panna cotta. This will probably be our last time at L’Espalier in its current location in Back Bay – the restaurant is moving to its new digs in the Mandarin Oriental in July. Although I’m sure they’ll enjoy their new home, we’ll surely miss the character of the original space.

Little did we know when we checked in this morning that participating in the medical emergency aboard our last flight earned us upgrades to the First Class cabin. While we would have appreciated free round trip tickets instead, flying First Class was nevertheless a novel experience for us. But aside from the priority boarding, larger seats, free food, and after-dinner sundaes, it was really nothing to brag about. Sure we had warm nuts, hot towels, table linens, and dinner served on porcelain plates with metal utensils and real glasses, but the lasagna was no better than your average cafeteria food. We didn’t take full advantage of the beverage service either since neither of us drink alcohol. Since the plane was small, we also didn’t have the private screens, noise-cancelling headsets or 180 degree reclining seats that the airline advertises. Although it was an interesting flight for cheap bums like us, I doubt we will ever shell out the dough to experience it again.

While Hong Kong is often known for its good eats and bountiful shopping, our trip there last week was more of a chance for me to re-experience the sights, sounds, and flavors from my childhood memories, as it’s been more than 20 years since I emigrated. After recuperating from the day-long journey and adjusting to the 12hr time difference, we awoke Tuesday morning to fresh dim sum at Luk Yu Tea House alongside middle-aged men reading the morning paper and shouting Cantonese at each other – reminscent of a scene from an HK action flick with Triad members ready for the ever-impending gang fight. We next took a double-decker bus to the south side of Hong Kong island to visit Ocean Park, part of Melody’s plan to visit every major aquarium in the world. The marine show was close to expectations, but the tri-lingual narration – with Mandarin (the official language), English (the ex-official language), and Cantonese (what people actually speak) – was pretty mind-boggling. By the time we got back, we were so exhausted that we decided to treat ourselves to a lavish afternoon tea at the Mandarin Oriental before taking the rest of the evening off. We started the next day with congee and fried dough at a local breakfast stand, had our fortune told at Wong Tai Sin temple, and even visited my old grade school, though the kids were all home due to the bird flu scare. After a quick bite, we spent most of the afternoon haggling away at the jade and ladies’ market before concluding the night with a tram ride up to Victoria Peak to take in the amazing view. On Thursday, we took the fancy new cable car up to visit the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. The 25-minute ride offered amazing views of the world’s largest Buddha, though somewhat scary in retrospect as we later learned that it had just recently re-opened after being shut down for a year for safety reasons. After sampling vegetarian dim sum at Po Lin Monastery, we returned to Kowloon for more bargain hunting and enjoyed roast goose at Yung Kee restaurant, which boasted 5 pages of awards on its menu. In the evening, we met some family friends over a seafood feast, including our first taste of fresh abalone in the shell (yum!). After dinner, we walked around my old neighborhood and even saw the building where I used to live. We ended our last night at the Temple Street night market, hoping to get a taste of fresh seafood from street stands known as dai pai dong. But alas, our bellies were so full that we could only wish that we had more time to eat everything we had wanted. Perhaps the most exciting part of our trip was aboard the return flight, when a sick male passenger necessitated the attention of any physician on board – who turned out to be my wife, the gynecologist. Fortunately, short of an actual “Outbreak” sequel, we were quickly cleared by public health officials for deboarding. Before returning to Boston, we will spend some time with Melody’s family in Cali as we ponder our missed opportunities for eating and shopping in Hong Kong, a city that I look forward to visiting again. Check out more photos on my travel page!

It’s official – my home for next year will be at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital. It’s probably a bit more hardcore than I needed for ophthalmology … ok, a LOT more hardcore … but I’ll get to work at the same place as Melody! Looking back, the infamous Match Day has been comparatively anti-climactic for early-matchers like me. For others, this was a much bigger deal, as this recent article in the Times would attest to. Anyway, I guess my fate to stay in Boston has been sealed for the next 4 years. Now, I have about 2 months to defend my honors thesis and otherwise enjoy full-blown senioritis before internship begins in June. I breathed a sigh of relief this afternoon as I handed back my ID badge to the hospital after completing my Psychiatry rotation. Before I left, my patient, who still thinks he’s an archangel despite being on maximum-dose Zyprexa and lithium, told me that he had a great time working with me, and that he’ll move my name up on the list of people going to heaven. For my last day of clinical duties as a medical student – it was certainly a nice parting gift.

Did you know that Maggi sauce is NOT from Asia? I read in an article this week that Maggi sauce, one of the most revered seasonings used in Cantonese home-cooking, is in fact from Switzerland! Among the 8 different types of soy sauces I use (yes, 8), from Chinese-branded light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, aged soy sauce, soy paste, and seafood soy sauce to Japanese ones like Kikkoman and Ponzu sauce, Maggi sauce stands apart as the one special flavoring I use alone. I use it on fried eggs or as a dipping sauce, but always sparingly and never in regular cooking – my magic Maggi sauce. It feels as if my world has turned upside down. I am left contemplating the origin of all the other stuff I had growing up in HK: Smarties candy, Bourvil broth, Mentholathum ointment… See how British colonialism warped my cultural identity?! I fell like I’ve finally “catched the crazies,” as Melody puts it, now that I’m rotating through the psychiatric locked-down unit. On the bright side, working there never leaves me with a dearth of stories to tell. I met a guy last Friday who told me that “little green men” were telling him to kill people. “This is very atypical for me,” he said, “since my USUAL hallucinations are about the KGB.” Isn’t psychiatry just awesome?

Now that Crysis is over, I figure it would be a good time to roll out some new improvements to the website, including updates to the links page and a brand new page for RSS feeds. This should work nicely as a portal for checking the latest news, at least for me. Anyway, since my wife’s away for a conference this weekend, I can go wild and do crazy fun stuff like cleaning the apartment! Now, with vacuum cleaner and furniture polish in hand, I’m ready to rock ‘n roll.

What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than opening night of the Boston Ballet’s production of Romeo & Juliet? Well, it’s really more of a romantic tragedy, but…ermmm…romantic nevertheless! It was an evening of cultural sophistication, down to our prelude of beef chow fun and duck noodle soup at good old HK Eatery. =) Anyway, I’m just glad that on this day, even geeks like me deserve a little love.

Welcome to the Year of the Rat! Unfortunately, neither of our ratty pals could be with us this year. And since this is our first Chinese New Year as a married couple, that means no more red envelopes either – a double whammy! Nevertheless, we celebrated the holiday as usual, by mouth. This included both a Canto-style seafood feast on Friday AND an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet this afternoon. In fact, the ease of the month-long pharmacology course I’m taking has afforded me the ability to finally eat and sleep like the average Joe – maybe even a bit more than Joe. Even after writing my honors thesis, I still had enough time to beat Gears of War on hardcore level. Now, with a few large expenditures in upcoming months, I’ll hopefully find stuff to do that’ll be more remunerative than collecting ammo or star bits.