I’m on the road still. Last night we made a food foray into deepest darkest Queens for Chinese at a now favorite place.
Starting with soup dumplings.
The spoons at the restaurant (blue and white on the left) are too small to eat these dumplings with anything like efficiency. Hence, I ordered larger spoons (white) with a deeper bowl and a little wider. The gals at the restaurant were amused and got into it by offering the spoon on the right, but it wasn’t any larger than the white one and it was more awkward, since it could not stand on its own.
One of our number wanted the crispy shrimp in mayo.
A wonderful and very spicy stew with chicken. In this case, I hit something which brought flaming spicy tears and a clear sinus.
Crispy beef.
The traditional Benedictines of Le Barroux can send you great wine.
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Cumin lamb, which we usually get. It was excellent this time.
What a pleasure to get great Chinese before heading south to the worst Chinese anywhere. Well… maybe not the very worst.
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A very cook picture of Venus, where there is no Chinese food option at all.
Clearest image ever taken of Venus. ?? pic.twitter.com/KbxHQWMhRi
— Curiosity (@MAstronomers) February 6, 2025
In chessy news… HERE
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Black to mate in 4.
[NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.]
I just watched an amazing come back from the brink of the deadly cliff in the big Fisher Random, “Freestyle” tournament in Germany. Fabi v. “Puer” (aka Alireza). Puer had a vicious attack going, but just didn’t have enough firepower to convert. Fabi, the sneak, found a way to defend and attack on the other side of the board. A deeply frustrated Puer resigned. Quite the instructive reversal and worth your time. Here’s the game. Paste it into an analysis board.
[Event “Freestyle Chess GST Weissenhaus RR 2025”]
[White “Caruana,Fabiano”]
[Black “Firouzja,Alireza”]
[Site “Weissenhaus”]
[Round “4.4”]
[Annotator “TA”]
[Result “1-0”]
[Date “2025.02.07”]
[WhiteElo “2803”]
[BlackElo “2760”]
[PlyCount “67”]
[Setup “1”]
[FEN “qbnrbknr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/QBNRBKNR w KQkq – 0 1”]
[TimeControl “600+10”]
1. c4 {[%emt 0:0:59]} c5 {[%emt 0:0:2]} 2. Nf3 {[%emt 0:0:2]} Nf6 {[%emt 0:0:31]} 3. d4 {[%emt 0:0:5]} cxd4 {[%emt 0:0:5]} 4. Nxd4 {[%emt 0:0:2]} b6 {[%emt 0:0:5]} 5. b3 {[%emt 0:0:27]} d5 {[%emt 0:0:50]} 6. O-O {[%emt 0:2:29]} O-O {[%emt 0:1:7]} 7. Nf5 {[%emt 0:0:21]} Bd7 {[%emt 0:0:25]} 8. Rxd5 {[%emt 0:0:50]} Bxf5 {[%emt 0:0:45]} 9. Rxf5 {[%emt 0:0:33]} Nd6 {[%emt 0:0:9]} 10. Rf3 {[%emt 0:0:12]} Nde4 {[%emt 0:0:16]} 11. Qb2 {[%emt 0:3:0]} Ng4 {[%emt 0:2:2]} 12. Rh3 {[%emt 0:0:32]} f5 {[%emt 0:0:17]} 13. Bxe4 {[%emt 0:1:13]} fxe4 {[%emt 0:0:39]} 14. e3 {[%emt 0:0:1]} Be5 {[%emt 0:1:9]} 15. Qe2 {[%emt 0:0:14]} Qc8 {[%emt 0:0:10]} 16. b4 {[%emt 0:0:35]} Rd6 {[%emt 0:1:32]} 17. Nb3 {[%emt 0:0:42]} Rg6 {[%emt 0:0:33]} 18. Rh4 {[%emt 0:0:23]} Nxh2 {[%emt 0:1:8]} 19. Rxh2 {[%emt 0:0:3]} Bxh2+ {[%emt 0:0:4]} 20. Kxh2 {[%emt 0:0:1]} Rf3 {[%emt 0:0:2]} 21. Rh1 {[%emt 0:0:20]} Qg4 {[%emt 0:1:3]} 22. Qf1 {[%emt 0:0:1]} Rf5 {[%emt 0:0:38]} 23. Kg1 {[%emt 0:0:2]} Rfg5 {[%emt 0:0:15]} 24. Rh2 {[%emt 0:0:33]} h5 {[%emt 0:0:10]} 25. Nd4 {[%emt 0:0:23]} e5 {[%emt 0:0:6]} 26. Ne2 {[%emt 0:0:10]} h4 {[%emt 0:0:1]} 27. Nc3 {[%emt 0:0:8]} Rh6 {[%emt 0:0:25]} 28. c5 {[%emt 0:0:7]} bxc5 {[%emt 0:0:2]} 29. bxc5 {[%emt 0:0:1]} Kh8 {[%emt 0:0:12]} 30. Qc4 {[%emt 0:0:8]} h3 {[%emt 0:0:1]} 31. Qxe4 {[%emt 0:0:8]} Qc8 {[%emt 0:0:36]} 32. g3 {[%emt 0:0:20]} Qxc5 {[%emt 0:0:0]} 33. Qa8+ {[%emt 0:0:4]} Kh7 {[%emt 0:0:0] Check Result:5.68} 34. Ne4 {[%emt 0:0:1]} 1-0
After several posts and all the photos over the past few years re: Chinese Food in Queens….
I am tempted to reroute a future trip to Rome through NYC. Could you suggest to your hosts that I am a “regular” guy and if they took me to the place I would gladly pick up the check.
It isn’t quite as far as Venus, but there’s a place in Montana with Chinese food. I won’t recommend the food, but the place itself is worth seeing.
Your deepest darkest Queens meal looks amazing!
Looks like a pretty good meal, Father. There is nothing like finding the good stuff done right.
We visited one of our neighboring parishes here in Boston last Sunday (Saint James the Greater, in Chinatown). We were invited down to the church hall afterwards for a Chinese New Year reception. The kitchen committee clearly knew their stuff – everything was good!
The Rome picture looks like the Italian version of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.
No one has offered a solution to your chess problem yet, Fr. Z — while White threatens a King hunt, Black is not without recourse. So it’s too neat to let go unanswered. Ecce explicatio:
1. Qxb3+! a2xQ (forced, otherwise mate next move)
2. a3a2+ Ka1 (forced, otherwise pawn = Q mate)
3. Rc1+ Kb2 (forced)
4. a2a1=Q mate.
So the Queen dies, only to come to life again — that’s why I say your problem is so neat.