Living in the metro Detroit area, the second half of January always signifies the coming of the auto show. I’m not a very big car guy, but recently I’ve been going to see all the new models. More recently it’s because I am in need of a new vehicle and NAIAS is basically a giant car dealership. Ravi was free on Friday so he accompanied me on my vehicular viewing. My favorite thing at the auto show are the concept cars.

I’m not sure why the heavy batman themes from GM this year, but the bat signal on the renaissance center was awesome.

After the auto show Ravi and I met up with Na and Ian at Johnny Noodle King. I’ve heard some great reviews from friends and decided to finally check it out. I lugged some other first timers in with me and we sampled a lot of food. The Char Siu Pork Bun was probably one of the tastiest things I had. The red curry brothed bowl was tasty, but I definitely could have eaten multiple pork buns.

After we ate our fill we headed to a bar to continue hanging out. The Sugar House is one of my favorite places to grab a drink in Corktown. They had a Chinese New Year themed cocktail menu that was pretty interesting. I opted to get the most port-like drink they had, The Liberal, since they didn’t have port. When we were ready to go home, a heavy fog had set in. I love fog. It was glorious.

Saturday was Dayna’s birthday so we met up at Vicente’s Cuban Cuisine for dinner before heading to Firebird Tavern to celebrate the rest of the night. Yue drove from East Lansing to come hang out, and it just happened to be her birthday as well! So she joined us for the evening and we all had a marvelous time.

Vicente’s was satisfactory, I was left pretty unimpressed with the food I had. It wasn’t bad, but I expected more. The calamari and empanada appetizers were mediocre, but the tilapia was tasty.

After leaving Firebird Tavern for home, we stopped at Del Taco to feed our drunken cravings before drifting off to sleep.

The fog was still dense Sunday, but we went to get some ramen at Matsuchan before returning and taking a walk through my neighborhood. The fog lingered for the rest of the day.

At night I met up with my parents and some family friends to try out a new restaurant . It’s a shanghaiese restaurant that makes soup dumplings that rival Ding Tai Fung. You have to call ahead and order your food ahead of time and make a reservation. The chef goes out on the Wednesday before and buys the ingredients for your reservation so that the food is fresh, and there’s little waste for the store. I highly recommend people try this place if they’re looking for some authentic Chinese food.

-Evilmanta