as soon as i arrived at the cafe i worked non-stop for the next few hours: made a new batch of tea eggs, made a new batch of boba pearls, cooked some dumplings, made a new batch of dark soy noodles.
today turned out to be a busy day even though it didn't feel like it. just a steady stream of business, so by the time we checked the sales in the late afternoon, we were surprised we'd already made that much. a lot of bento orders, followed by beef noodle soup. we ran out of char siu and salt & pepper chicken so we roasted some more char siu in the air fryer and fried some chicken in the deep fryer. my father showed me a way to fry by dipping the chicken directly into the oil instead of adding to the elevated fry basket which is what i normally do.
over the weekend the handyman came and reassembled the parking lot deck. some customers tried to sit there, but we didn't have the patio umbrella out yet (looking to replace it) and it was just too sunny and hot to be sitting outside. my sister asked the handyman to extend the deck, which i thought was a bad idea. since she's not working at the cafe anymore (at least not in any official scheduled manner), she's actually making more work for us by expanding and added more sit-in customers, we can barely manage with just the indoor seats we have now.
i didn't have lunch until almost 4pm, ate some leftover barbecue from last night: 2 drumsticks and 1 italian sausage in a sandwich roll. i still couldn't quite believe the celtics swept the pacers yesterday, and spent all my break time looking up celtics write-ups and videos.
when we finally closed, my parents stuck around to have dinner at the cafe (leftovers) while i took the barbecue home to eat.
game 4 between the timberwolves and mavericks was tonight. i was rooting for minnesota, just so the western conference finals would continue, hopefully tire out which ever team wins to face the celtics in the championship series next thursday. neither teams had excuses, as both we relatively healthy. the great mystery is why the timberwolves - who beat the defending champions nuggets - now seemed to have lost their mojo in the conference final. tonight minnesota finally showed up. they lead for most of the game, though mostly by single digits, with the mavericks always threatening. the entire second half the deficit was only 5 points or less. timberwolves finally won one, 105-100. game 5 is thursday night. the deeper the series goes, the more notes it gives boston's coaching staff, which is a good thing.