The (Impromptu) First Eat

I know I said my next post would be a listing of the restaurants I've passed over the last week or so that have peaked my interest, but everything doesn't always go as planned. After having the opportunity to watch Andrew Zimmern's visit to Birmingham, that I noted in my previous post, I was really struck by some of the places I couldn't believe I hadn't tried. So, since the family and I have been in a power outage the last couple of days, and had to eat out last night, we decided to visit one of his tour stops ourselves. The Oriental Market/Red Pearl Restaurant became the first eat.

All my life, well ever since the place has been there, which has been a while since it was once a Quincy's that went out of business in the early 90s (I remember because I loved their big fat yeast rolls), I have thought it was only a supermarket that sold you know, green teas from Asia and stuff. My normal trip for these types of things is a market in the area of my city known as the Southside, so when I saw that this market had a restaurant on the show I thought, WOW, all this time I had no idea they were serving food too. I've been looking for a new Chinese food staple as well since the establishment I grew up patronizing shut down last year as the couple who ran it returned home, so visiting Red Pearl Restaurant was a matter of perfect timing.

I knew we'd struck GOLD, though, when my guy uttered the words That's that flavor Dragon Express usta have. Why? He's the pickiest non-Asian Asian food eater you ever want to meet. Well, he's a picky eater period, but especially about Chinese food because he swears by the authenticity of all of Asian eateries in the Midwest where he's from. And he stated it about the dish that we ordered for the kids, Chicken Fried Rice Noodles, that contains one of his least favorite foods...eggs. He even ate the eggs!! 

The two of us decided on crab dishes, I the Hot and Spicy Blue Crab and he the Salted Crispy Blue Crab. Blue crab is native to the Gulf region, and is very popular in New Orleans, Gulf Shores, places along the coast. I've grown up eating lots of it since my mom is from a small Alabama town a little over an hour away from Panama City Beach, and begged him to be turned on to it after a cookout/fish fry at my parents home. So we were rather anxious to see what these dishes would taste like with an authentic Asian flare. And boy, it did not disappoint. I often think people on TV make these dishes seem so good, but once I started on my plate and couldn't stopped I realized this is not an exaggeration.

My crab was just the right amount of spicy and onion-y. I was able to try his and the kids plates too, because it is one of those real Asian food places where they bring out enough for the whole table to eat everything and, the freshness of the ingredients, the vegetables in the Chicken Fried Rice Noodles, and the way the salted crab tasted straight from the ocean were things that would make me go running back to try several dishes at the Red Pearl. Needless to say, thanks to day one of this exploration I have found a new (dare I say favorite) Chinese eatery. I'll be back to the store for some seeds for my garden too, thank you very much. Join me over at www.cadiebeasgarden.siterubix.com if you want to find out how the fall plantings of these seeds shipped from Asia turn out.

Oh, and I'm still working on the list...tomorrow, tomorrow.