rut 4 - Kevin Johnson

Friday night I found myself with a group of friends wandering center street in search of food.  We really wanted to go to the pupusa place because they are dang good, but sadly it was 9 o'clock and they were closed.  After some more searching, we found China Garden, which advertised itself as having "Best Chinese Food," so we figured it would be worth checking out.  I've eaten Chinese food tons of times before, but as I looked at the menu I realized the only things I ever get are orange chicken, sesame chicken, or general tao's chicken.  So this seemed like a good opportunity to branch out.  I decided to order Moo Goo Gai Pan, basically because I had no idea what it was.  It was listed under the dinner specials.  Turns out it is a dish of chicken with lots of mushrooms and vegetables in a kind of light salty sauce.  It is really good.  The restaurant itself is also pretty legit; the owner is this cool Chinese lady who was joking around with our table the whole time.  Plus they give really big portions; I took home enough for my lunch today.  From this I learned how easy it is for us to get stuck in the same routine.  The menu at this restaurant had at least 30 different options, yet there were only 4 or 5 that I had already tried.  I learned that branching out and going for new things can be a really rewarding activity.  How else are we gonna discover new stuff that we like if we aren't willing to take the risk to try it?