Melly MellyChow: Food + Theatre

Week 6 is officially over (along with week 7 now) and I decided to head home to support my best friend Kim's little brother, Gordon, in the Shrek Musical at my high school, Mark Keppel High.

That weekend's Saturday, my sister and I went to You Kitchen. The place was definitely weird, the system of getting a table and ordering. You first order at a machine (pictured below) and then you sit down at the table you picked, and pay for your food after you eat. Very interesting indeed. The food was okay. Out of the three dishes we ordered, I liked the Sesame Chinese Pizza the best. It was so good! It was light yet flavorful. You can taste the green onions. Really good. The dumplings and buns were okay. The dumplings were a little saltier and greasier than expected, but I did like how the plate allowed the water from the steam to drain. I did like the skin of the dumplings because it was thick. As for the pork buns, I also liked the skin, the bread of the buns. The meat was again a little salty and greasy.

Saturday evening, we all went to Mark Keppel High to watch the Shrek Musical. It was amazing. Great performance by the cast and crew. It was also great to see my tech theatre teacher, Mr. Gillette, again. Always great to come back to my roots of where my passion in production stemmed from and give back a little.

The following Sunday, the entire family went to Nature Pagoda. I found it that week at Fullerton and sent it to my sister to show her. I thought it was crazy how this little gem is in the San Gabriel Valley, just a city over where we live, yet we never tried it. First timers! My mom actually went that week after my sister showed it to her, so 3/4 first timers. The clay pot rice dishes were fantastic! I saw them in the picture form on Instagram and felt like I was staring at comfort food. In person, in a flesh, they were prettier than ever. The food came out pretty quick and the rice were amazing. Each clay pot rice has its own sauce to go with it, so we put some of it on the rice. Then we mixed it and placed it on our plates to devour. The soups were also wonderful. Very clear and simple. The dumplings that came with the soup we ordered were a little saltier and very saucy as you can see below due to the sauce all over it. However, overall, the food was spectacular. To top it off, the Taro Sago, a sweet soup dessert, was lovely. Not too sweet and you can taste the pearls on your tongue. Also, the pictures below for Nature Pagoda was taken by my big sister, Melissa. At the time, I ran out of space on my phone to take pictures, so credits to her! You may like to check out her Yelp account for her critiques as well!