I’m ready at 9:30 am for the Food Marathon in the San Gabriel Valley. Five resturants, five miles, five opportunities to cramp up. You know I mean business since I have my visor and fanny pack primed.
I trained all of um, seven days for this? I am not a natural runner, and since I am Upper-Respiratory-Issues-Girl, the thought of running in nearly 100-degree heat with a raging brush fire nearby makes me wary of this whole endeavor.
After following Gastronomy on Twitter for a while, I decided to take her up on a mysterious tweet that asked for runners who liked food. Well, I like food. Oh, and if you think food bloggers would be out of shape, think again. Each of the regular food bloggers — the gastronomer with astronomer in tow, LAOCfoodie, yutjangsah and foodmarathon — led the pack every step of the way.
Hey what? I’d never met these people before, but I was hoping that someone would be doing the fast heel-toe mall walk with me as I trailed far, far behind. Later, I learned that a couple of the bloggers ran often (cross country, as a hobby, etc.) and another was an actual marathoner. I smell a hustle!
I couldn’t ask for a better start, Dean Sin World; although the wine blew (upper left) is too heavy on the wine pre-marathon. No need to get drunk. We already agreed to these shenanigans sans booze. A cool, beef tendon dish (upper right) provides the protein for muscle-building. The juicy, pork-filled xiao long bao, aka soup dumpling, tastes excellent nude (bottom right) or with a soy vinegar sauce. I’ll certainly be back to fill up on these on a non-marathon day, and the lion’s head soup (bottom left) has some of my favorite soup ingredients: glass noodles, soothing cabbage and hearty tender meatballs.
There’s none of this waiting 20 minutes to digest crap. After partially filling our bellies with Dean Sin’s deadly goodness, we stretch, pose for photo ops and we’re off!
All told, we hit six places since we ended at a frozen yogurt establishment. Most people acquit themselves well considering the heat and eating-excercising. I’m lagging behind every leg, which is somewhat discouraging, but only much, much later — two weeks in fact — did I learn that I was actually sick with a viral infection that weekend. So yeah, maybe I could have done better. I tell myself that anyway.
Check out the full gallery of the food marathon:
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- Cathy (right) from Gastronomyblog is the evil mastermind behind the stomach-cramping event.
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- Rabble in fron tof Dean Sin are rival Yelpers on a dumpling crawl.
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- Wine blew face
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- A speedy 0.2 miles to …
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- Ma Ma’s Lu Dumpling House
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- What’s they’re not open yet? We burned up that pavement.
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- Every gathering should have a Lazy Susan.
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- Stretching to accommodate more food
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- Chewy Shanghai rice cakes (upper left) and crisp scallion pancakes (bottom left) are worth the run. Skip the doughy dumplings.
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- Not crazy about the cold, peanutty Dan Dan noodles nor the pumpkin shrimp dumplings. Sweet and flaky beef rolls get the sweaty thumbs up though!
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- Ah, my people. I am not alone.
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- Bamboodles is right across the street. The food is as delightful as the cheesy name.
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- The springy Tiggeriffic fish balls were only $1, but it was the cold spinach noodles I loved. The spicy wontons just made me sweat more on my seat.
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- The bamboo rod that a man bounces up and down on so we may enjoy Bamboodles’s noodles.
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- Detour to Kingburg because Michelle’s pancake was too crowded. Eff that! We’ve run this far, we can run across the street to Kingburg.
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- Baby touting refreshing beverages. Diabolical.
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- Clockwise from top left: beef tendon-eroni; make way for dumplings; shredded tofu salad; bread pancake – All good, but damn, I think I had 4 glasses of water here.
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- Final stop. The heat is killer. I’m coming for you Weezy!
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- Tart & all anti-oxident-y
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- This picture is stolen from gastronomy blog. You can see why. We’re full of awesome sauce.
Nutty? Yes! But dammit, I’d do it again. Perhaps you’d like to come with? We can drive.
Dean Sin World
306 N Garfield Ave. #2
Monterey Park, CA 91754
Mama’s Lu Dumpling House
153 E Garvey Ave.
Monterey Park, CA 91755-2954
101 Noodle Express
1408 E Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, CA 91801-5238
Bamboodles
535 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776-3700
Kingburg Kitchen
715 W Las Tunas Dr.
San Gabriel, CA 91776
Blue Cherry Yogurt Bar
137 W Main St.
Alhambra, CA 91801
Also, check out scintillating accounts of the Food Marathon by Gastronomy and YutJangSah. Additional thanks to Gastronomer Cathy for setting this up, Mattatouille for carting bottles and towels and lastly our bloated carcasses back from the yogurt to our cars and to Andy Stubinski, whom I convinced to join us.
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What a great idea!
It was definitely fun!!