Oh hey there guys.

A couple of weeks ago my Instagram friend (by which I mean a person who I feel that I know extremely well because I follow her on Instagram, but whom I do not actually know at all) Alexis posted about a Northern Chinese restaurant she went to in Queens called Golden Palace. And in that post, she called it a "food adventure." So: restaurant googled; trip planned.

Northern Chinese, at it turns out, is a totally different thing than the Chinese food I'm used to (primarily Hunanese, Sichuanese, and Cantonese). It's not one of the "Eight Great Traditions" of Chinese cuisine, and is considered sort of less refined by Southerners (which apparently has more to do with political and economic differences between the regions than the quality of the actual food, because it's totally as interesting - and delicious - as what you find in neighboring areas).