"There is old wine for our cups."

For a day which began under a cloud, this one sure ended with a rainbow. We met Nuphy at Phoenix for dim sum. Although we enjoyed it and appreciated some of the unusual offerings--like tempura-fried laver-wrapped shrimp and some sort of pan-fried root vegetable (water chestnut?) cake with sweet corn--we did miss some of the offerings we've come to consider standard issue, notably the sweet cucumber pickles. These are the perfect palate-cleanser between rich and oily courses and they were nowhere to be seen. At some point, the funny little man mentioned that Richwell Market on Canal St. has obtained a liquor license and is opnely selling premium Chinese wine.

monshu and I couldn't believe our ears. We decided then and there that we must check out the selection. Of course, there were all matter of errands to attend to first. He wanted to find Chinese-style hangers for the splendid window he'd given me for (Western) New Year's. After the third shop in South Chinatown (we'd exhausted North Chinatown on a previous weekend), we were beginning to give up hope--the dealers seemed only to buy and sell them attached to frames, not separately--but we thought we'd try the second-story furniture shop on Wentworth. (Ching Wei, if memory serves.) To our amazement, they had some. Leftovers from a previous customer's order, they were quite attractive, too; shiny brass in a double happiness-type design. We counted ourselves blessed and bought them on the spot.

After a couple more shops, monshu had found his vase and my screaming shoulder was crying out for a place to rest my bag full of lucky candies from Aji no Ichiban, spring crop tea from Ten Ren, and other new acquisitions. At Mountain View, monshu sipped "green apple snow" while I had a "tapioca milk tea" that showed up on the menu as "taro milk tea", snacked on green tea coconut cake (a bit like non-dairy panna cotta), and decoded the specials menu for fun with my copy of McCawley's. (I was sorely disappointed not to be able to try the thrice-cooked pork, but we were still far too full from brunch.)

At this point, the sun was still shining and the ice snow on the sidewalk was mostly melted, so I convinced my better half to walk the few blocks to Richwell. Unbelievable! They had at least a dozen brands of Chinese wine/liquor in stock. everything from Taiwanese sorghum-based hooch to mainland grape wine. (We dismissed the latter out of hand, but perhaps we were wrong to, since we found a site claiming that at least Huadong brand is perfectly drinkable. Do they sell it? We'll have to go back and check.) At the pricier end were Moutai and Wuliangye, both of which my parents brought back for us from China. Also, a $52 bottle of "wine ghost wine" that sounded as intriguing as it did prohibitive.

We settled on three bottles: An $8 ordinary Shaoxing (which we wanted to compare to the cheaper bottles sold as cooking wine in most markets), a $15 Shaoxing herbal called Shiquandabujiu (literally "ten complete big tonic wine"), and a $22 "Luzhou old cellar" (Luzhou laojiao) wine from Sichuan. ( How did they stack up? )