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i'd planned on taking GC to 88 supermarket in allston today, before heading to belmont in the afternoon. but this morning he started preparing some of the sweet corn he bought yesterday, so i didn't pitch my idea to him. good thing i didn't because my mother called at 10:20am, said my father would be closing the cafe early today (no customers on this 4th of july weekend) and we'd drive out to quincy sometime after noontime and have a late lunch at taipei cuisine, the place we discovered 2 weeks ago. i thought it was just the 3 of us, but my mother said she invited my sister, and she invited her friend, and she wasn't sure if she was coming or not, and might go on their own. and then my father invited my sister's godmother who happened to be at the cafe, so it was ballooning into a big expedition.

i packed up my things and left around 11am. as customary, i went into the backyard to water the plants.

both hollyhocks and malva zebrinas were in bloom. i pinched off a few more weevils i found on the hollyhocks and discovered an assassin bug lying in waiting. i'd never seen one of those in the garden before, hopefully it finds a few more weevils than the ones i got rid of.

my sister arrived without her friend, said her friend wasn't interested in going. it would've been awkward anyway, for her friend to join our family lunch. my father didn't get home with my sister's godmother until after 1pm, and we didn't leave for quincy until almost 1:30pm.

it took half an hour to drive the 14 miles to get there. we arrived around 2pm but had to wait a bit for an open table. it was a hot but dry day, so standing in the shade with a sea breeze felt pretty good. there was a bubble ice tea shop a few stores down that was crazy busy, with cars double parked outside and customers running in and out.

5 of the 8 dishes we ended up ordering were things my sister picked out. when we brought it up she doesn't get to eat out often (which is a lie) so this was her chance to eat the things she wanted to eat. my sister's selection ended up taking so much that my mother forgot to order one of the dishes she wanted to try (garlic scapes with smoked pork). as for me, my only request was we get stinky tofu. everything was good except the sanbeiji, which had very little basil and the chicken seemed to be precooked as it was awfully dry and didn't have any of that traditional sanbeiji taste.

we finished an hour later ($65 bill) as my mother went next door to the bakery to get some pastries. from there we drive 3 miles into quincy center, to the good fortune asian supermarket (230 quincy avenue). it wasn't as crowded as the last time we came, or at least there wasn't a pileup at the entrance. we parked at the far end of the lot, where there was plenty of parking.