Mian

I walked into the darkish restaurant: Mian. My favorite Szechuan Chinese spot in Houston. A lovely lady asked me if I was dining in. I said yes and she said "sit wherever you would like". 

I sat at one of those tables adjacent to a wall and faced the restaurant entrance (so I wouldn't be facing the other patron one table down from me). I pulled up the online menu on my phone and ordered like the hungry boss I was: Beef noodles, Pork dumplings, Brown Sugar Milk Tea. I had enough time to read my mediocre fantasy novel while I waited for the meal.

They brought me this spicy cabbage and plum tea to start. Sorry Kimchi, but China does spicy cabbage better in my opinion. The smooth chopsticks took some getting used to but I managed. 

The beef noodles came out next. The beautiful, very large bowl was brimming with red chili oil, chewy yellow-brown noodles, green onions, bok choy, and clumps of beef. The broth was the beefiest flavor. And though I ordered mild, it had quite a spicy kick. The beef was a bit tough, but I enjoyed chewing through it. It was hard to keep little bits of soup from falling from my chopsticks into the broth—causing splashes. So napkins were clutch.

The tea was so delicious. Very sugary and milky and almost like vanilla ice cream. It cooled down the spice.

A male waiter brought me my dumplings. He almost looked confused when I said "thank you very much". He lingered a second too long and walked away with a small grunt that could've meant "you're welcome". 

The dumplings had one large pool of chili oil in the bottom and a healthy amount drizzled on most of the dumplings on top. These dumplings were big. You kind of have to do some maneuvering to get a whole one in your mouth in a single go. But I managed. And those puppies were delicious. The perfect chewiness. The perfect burst of spicy pork in the middle. Ugh. I need those daily.

I took some food to-go in the clear plastic tupperware they gave me. They know I'll be back.