Guanxi

February 3

Bill Goldberg, an old friend from my high school youth group, has a little brother Jon, who just moved to New York. Jon’s not much of a little brother anymore. Now he’s 37 years old and heading up the U.S. operations of American Oriental Bioengineering, a company that works with both Western and Chinese medicine.
He text-messaged me today, wondering if I had plans. I invited him to join me and Jean Tang, she of the karaoke, for dinner in Chinatown.
We went to the Grand Sichuan near the Fung Wah bus stop on the northeast corner of Canal and Bowery. Kenny Lao, he of the dumplings, introduced me to the place.
Kenny recently was named one of Crain’s New York’s 40 under 40. He's quite the star. If I’d had anything to do with it, I’d be very proud. Instead I’m just glad for him.
Jean had spent the afternoon in Chinatown trying to identify various herbs for an article she’s writing for New York magazine. Jon’s working on finding people in his company who can help.
It’s nice when things work out that way.
While I was waiting for Jean and Jon, I called Kenny so he could remind me what dish we particularly enjoyed and Grand Sichuan. It was the pork with spicy green pepper.
We also ate chicken with chiles and peanuts, stir-fried loofah (it's not really; it's a stalk-like green vegetable), and ham-and-winter-melon soup.
For dessert, after a failed attempt to get sticky toffee pudding at Schiller's, we ended up with cupcakes and pistachio bundt at Sugar Sweet Sunshine