Meeting the new lab, hacking Red Chilli

Earlier this week I got to meet most of my new lab (mostly not pictured here!) over a leisurely lunch at Red Chilli, a chinese restaurant near campus.  The lab seems great, very welcoming and fun. Later I met with a few of them individually, and even got to see a multi-electrode array recording from an ex-vivo retina as it was exposed to various patterns of light.  Very cool!  It's exciting, refreshing, and a bit scary to join a lab where the questions, techniques and model systems are so different from what I have worked on in the past.

A few more thoughts on Red Chilli.  Laurel has been at Manchester for over two years now, and has eaten here almost ten times, usually with a visiting speaker or as part of a big group.  I think every university has a restaurant or two like this: the place that is so close and easy for groups that you end up there over and over, even though the food isn't quite good enough that you'd travel out of your way to eat it.  I think of these restaurants as a puzzle to be cracked.  Since you know you're going there again and again, you may as well figure out an optimal order.  One of the running themes of this blog will be my explorations of the Red Chilli menu.

Red Chilli report 1: The lab wanted a long, decadent lunch, so we ordered from the 3-item prix fixe lunch menu. I chose 1) Beijing Hot & Sour Soup, 2) Beijing Minced Pork & Prawn Dumplings, and 3) Mrs Spotty Beancurd with Minced Beef.
Results:
Soup was fine, indeed sour and slightly spicy, rich with corn starch and studded with a few small shrimp and, as one labmate described them, "ham cuboids."  Not bad, but wouldn't order again.
Dumplings were great!  These appeared to be boiled.  Tasty filling, with some broth.  Would definitely order again.
Mrs. Spotty was recommended by Laurel, as the closest thing to mapo tofu, one of our favorite dishes.  This tasted like it was just chunks of tofu with fermented black beans and ground sichuan peppercorn in a thin sauce, with bland ground beef.  No green onion!  Not bad, but doesn't make it to the next round.