I might not be the dad that can take their kids to China.

Apparently, while trying to catch a bus, my daughter ran it to some sort of bike rack. She made it home, but by the next morning it was obvious knee needed more attention  We coulda gone to the ER, but I've been there. This was not an emergency and they treat everyone like shit.  So at 7:30 in the morning  called the pediatrician.  She said we should come to the office when it opens at 9 am.

After a few pokes and twists of my daughter's knee it was determined that it was "probably" a contusion or a bruise, rather than the much more serious strain, sprain, tear, break or dislocation.  But, we needed to get an X-Ray and a MRI and see a specialist to make sure.  Our doctor even made the appointment for us  1:45 that afternoon.  Nice.  If we were in the ER, she would have sat on a table till that time.  We also would have been a continual state of waiting, not knowing when we would have been seen by a specialist.

But this gave us a special dilemma. It was only 10 am, what should we do till 1:45?  Our pediatrician is in Bensenhurst and the orthopedic guy was in Brooklyn Heights.



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We could have gone home and had a pizza.  But we had better options. On the way between the two doctors offices was one of Brooklyn's mini Chinatowns in Sunset Park.  I found a spot in front of 18 Chinese Cuisine.  It is called that because it is located at 4418 8th Ave.  I think their name is something else, bur I don't read Chinese.

This was the perfect distraction for my foodie 12 year old daughter.  It was unlike 99.99% of the rest of the restaurants in the United States.  All the tables in the dining room were large and we were seated and an empty table.  When my daughter sat a seat away from me I told her to move next to me, because more people were coming.  She thought I was joking, but moments later two men were seated across from us.  There were menus, but nobody looked at them.  The food that was available was brought around in carts. For the most part, all the food was a type of dumpling.  Also, nobody, NOBODY in the restaurant was speaking English.

Really, there was no English in the restaurant.  When the tray came around you could not ask for the item in the middle, you had to point to the item you wanted.  I was glad my daughter thought this was fun.  I was also glad she was cute enough not to frustrate the staff.

We also really had no idea what we were eating.  We just got stuff.  If she liked it she ate it.  If she did not like it I did.  My daughter kept asking me what the things were that were on the tray.  I said that I did even know what the things were that we just ate, let along the things that we haven't eaten yet

When we were waiting for desert, I looked at my daughter and mentioned that we were less than 2.5 miles from our house.  It was also a very walkable 2.5 miles because we were on the same street that we live.  I said that in 2 or 3 or 10 years she might take her friends to this restaurant, or one on the same block.and that I hoped that she would remember that she first came here with her dad.

Anyway, desert was off the charts unexpected.  There were lots of cakes, tarts, pies, nut balls and other familiar sweets on the cart.  But we ordered the thing that did not look like food. It was a rolled up slice of flat grape jelly.  We only ate a little.

My daughter would not let me take pictures of the food.  She said she did not want to look like a tourist.  But she did let me take one photo if I made it look like I was just checking my messages.  So I turned off the flash and took the one below.  It also included the bill.  No numbers, the servers just put their stamps in various columns. The big lunch for 2 cost about $22.  All the serves had their own stamps, maybe they got paid on commission.  I left a tip anyway.

If you want to see more pictures of their food click this

So after our leisurely and exotic lunch we headed over to a pediatric orthopedist.  After some more twisting, a X-Ray and a MRI, it was confirmed that it was just a contusion.  Not a break or a sprain.  She has to take it easy till a week after it does not hurt anymore.