Hmong New Year report

Yeah, Hmong New Year! Did not roll with a crew this year, just my wonderful husband, who is my favorite accomplice for eating adventures. What more solid foundation could a marriage be built on? That's some bomb-ass Hmong sausage. Nice lemongrass flavor, and the meat was very finely chopped, so you didn't get those not-always-appetizing big chunks of fat. We also got the pork chop/rib thingy that comes all cleavered up. Both came with Hmong chile, which is mostly just chilies and fish sauce. What more do you need?

 

I was not going to get papaya salad, but then we got in a line for a place that had Kao Poon (which is a soup) that they advertised as "Changmai style". That intrigued me and the picture didn't reveal much about what it actually was. Then as we waited...and waited...and realized that everyone in line was there for the papaya salad. The woman in front of us told us it was rumored to be the best. A woman in back of us said she had waited an hour the day before and was now back for more. I am not a huge papaya salad lover, but we had to try it. And no one seemed to be getting the kao poon anyways. Guess what? It was truly the best papaya salad I've ever had. I don't know the difference, but the fish sauce had lots of little crab bits in it, and they also put an intense amount of lime. And a substance that was either sugar or a sugar/MSG mixture. I vote for the mixture because it was so savory. Yum!

 



 How rad are these Hmong novelty tees? The blow me one is for some instrument, and the Hmong Bong is, IDK, another instrument? Something that you smoke ceremonially? There were a lot of people selling herb and stick bundles that looked to be for ceremonial burning.

This year marked my second straight year of leaving my phone in the car, so not many pictures. These are cute ladies doing the cute ball toss ritual.

 

Oh man, what about that story about James Deen, the porn star? You following that? I have always agreed with something I read that James Deen is like a 4 in the regular world but a 9 or 10 in the porn world, and he's Jewish, too! But sounds like he is a rapist, crappy!