Stars of Track and Field

You know that Belle and Sebastian song, "the stars of track and field are beautiful people"? Well, as it turns out, we're kind of crazy too. So, when Cathy of gastronomyblog invited me to join her and some fellow nutjobs (Cathy's Astronomer, food marathon, LA and OC Food Adventures, Mattatouille, Hanhonymous) to run around Monterey Park and Alhambra to eat at five restaurants to carboload and run about five miles in between each stop, I hit the reply button with a quickness and typed "I'm in." It was a brilliant idea conceived in Cathy's adorable head and funded by Foodbuzz.

At the time I had no idea it was going to be 100 degrees and there would be fires burning all across So.Cal. - but hey, does an Olympic athlete quit because it's a little warm outside? No. Neither does the nutjangsah. Little known fact: Eye of the Tiger was written for me (when I see an ice cream sandwich but whatevs). Eye of the tiger, stomach of the pig. Don't hate.

This is the route as mapped by someone with ARMY training. Look at the heart shape on the zero point two miles between Dean Sin World and Mama's Lu. As a fake runner, I was all over that 0.2 action.


First stop: Dean Sin World. I drove by like twice until I spotted some fools in athletic gear looking sheepish. Ahhh... and so it begins!

Our designated Mandarin speaker bailed on us. Yeah, kung food panda, I'm lookin' at you. Stink eye. So, H.C. valiantly tried to speak Cantorin or Mandanese. The response? "The hell you say!"

Wine blew. As in alcohol. Warm, ricey liquor. At 9:30 a.m. So transgressive and yet, not my cup of tea in this 98 degree weather.

Lion's head soup. I loved this. It reminded me of dahn jang gook with the abundant rough chopped napa cabbage and then there were these lovely giant meatballs. Delicious.

Tendon meat. Now this is what I'm talkin' about. No pork belly for me. I'm all about the sinewy meats. Bring on the stew meat and the tendon. With a lovely spicy flavor I definitely ate more than my fair share.

Yay! Soup dumplings. This is a little circle of happiness right here. Yummy.

Dean Sin World was nice but the world's weirdest cross country relay race was off to the next stop.

Second stop: Mama's Lu. We had broken a mild dewey sweat at this point. The breakfast club studiously examines what's on offer.

Rice cakes. This was my favorite dish of the entire tour de Monterey Park. Like duk bokee taken to Chinese heaven. MSG all over this thing. Savory to the maximus. Chewy gooey looey.

Green onion pancake. So crispey it squeaked a little when I bit into it. Cathy loved this and asked a few times "should we order another one?" We all let her down by saying things like "uhh if you want." Fail.

Pan fried dumps. In lowered tones of shame and judgment, we pronounced these "doughy". And so the guillotine fell down and chopped the chef's head off. Food bloggers. A harsh audience.

We ate and ran. Then I saw the mighty morphin' power rangers. In Monterey Park. Weird, right?

Third Stop: 101 Noodle Express. H.C. had set a punishing pace like a 9 minute mile (hey I don't actually run that often). With the heat rising off the pavement and our own body heat, we had to be like 105 degrees. Oh, that's incompatible with life? Well, I was there buddy and I was like 105 degrees. By the time we arrived, we were all dripping sweat and looking like the kind of people you don't want to eat around.

We weren't bothered though. Especially when the ginormous beef roll came thundering down onto the table. The cilantro/jalapeno condiment on top of all the cilantro in this glorious burrito was magnificent.

The dan dan noodles were my second favorite dish of the tour de farce. Peanutty, rich, slurpable, noodleyness. It was better than jja jang myun. I said it.

Steamed dumps. Yum.

Like a field trip gone bad, isn't it? We knew the next leg was going to hurt because we were hot and sweaty and getting kind of full. But Olympians don't go for the bronze. They don't run for silver. They sweat for gold. Ya dig?

Fourth stop: We trudged our way to Bamboozles. Spicy dumplings. Yum yum in our traumatized tum tums.

Fish balls why are you so round, fun and al dente? Get over here so I can uhh investigate further...

My third favorite dish. Green tea noodles with shredded pork, bean sprouts, julienned cukes in a wasabi soy sauce. So light, refreshing and virtuous. You're a good thing.

Fifth stop: Michelle's Pancake was packed so we ran down the street to Kingburg. Super lucky cat and his friend pig beckoned us with his paw. Did you know Asians gesture overhand to beckon whereas Westerners do it underhand? Isn't that interesting?

Spicy marinated tendon. Good stuff.

This bread was all kinds of carbolicious. Bagel, go home already. We have a better breakfast bread right here.

This was a great pan fried dumpling. The executioners sagely nodded their chewing heads and proclaimed: Much better than Mama's Lus which were... "doughy".

The last leg to the promised land of yogurt. I was running when I ran into some Asian/American hams. The Alhambra sign marked a moment quite like that of Neil Armstrong. We had done what no man before us had done. Run from Monterey Park to Alhambra, eating along the way at 5 restaurants and we were proud like Marines. And strong. ARMY strong. America, these are the footsoldiers in the battle for and yet against obesity.

Then we skipped, hobbled and limped our ways to yogurt. Cool and tart. Like a fresh wind off the ocean, I got a medium and cooled myself down in style.

What a once in a lifetime experience it was and so well organized by gastronomyblog. There were numbers for our race and the very forward thinking plan to have a driver cart our stuff and the parking of a second car by the yogurt shop so we could be ferried back like bloated Elvi back to Dean Sin World. Where it all began.

We all talked crazy during the day. I leave the confidences of fellow runner/eaters undisturbed but the level of self-congratulation and remarks like "we are so hard core" I must share. Because it cracks me up. This run could only happen in America. God bless this land of plenty. May you all experience the joy of running from meal to meal one day in 100 degree weather. You won't forget it. I promise.