New cuisine: MuQam Uyghur

Have you ever heard of Uyghur cuisine? We hadn’t so we decided to give this restaurant in Plano a try. Uyghur cuisine is described as a “delicious “Silk Road” fusion of Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and Northern Chinese flavors” which was news to us as we thought it was just another Chinese regional cuisine. We tried two of the “must try” dishes: Laghman and Polo. We split a portion of Laghman and are not sure if they gave us a larger amount but we each had a full plate of that super delicious dish of hand-pulled noodles topped with stir-fried beef and vegetables like bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes. The waitress brought us a complimentary sample of the polo which is rice pilaf slowly simmered in oil and lamb broth with carrots and tender meat, and some smattering of fruit. Lastly, we tried the gash nan which was a deep-fried beef dumpling; good but not as good as the Laghman.

New and old ice cream flavors: Unfortunately for us, Tongue in Cheek Ice Cream (see L previous post) opened another location, this time very close to Laura and close enough to Barbara to be very tempting. They were so good the last time we tried them, that we went in to see if they had any “M” flavors and we were in luck. Laura loved their Mint Chip and Barbara, since their Lemon Cream Pie was delicious, tried the Mango Cream Pie and was in heaven!

New movie: “FULL METAL JACKET”

War films are not typically within our movie universe, but we were curious about the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket – most likely because it was directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick. (Plus, as a minor factor, Laura’s son Matthew was nicknamed Bodine by Barbara’s late husband after the actor Matthew Modine, the star of this film.)

The film is divided into two halves. The first concerns itself with training camp and really brings out how the recruits are stripped of their identity – through shaving off their hair and often giving them nicknames. This primes them to being trained for combat and being bullied by their abusive drill instructor whose horrific insults to the men sometimes caused us to both cringe and grimace. An overweight and mentally slow character is particularly brutalized and definitely defines this first half of the film. Actual combat makes up the second half. This was harsh but we didn’t feel as emotional as we had expected, probably because we weren’t particularly attached to any of the characters. Overall, it was an interesting film but not a favorite.

Learning Center: MARINES

A lot of us can sing or certainly hum the MARINES HYMN (Barbara tried again and got almost all the words right). But did you know that a road can sing that song? According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, in 2023 the city of Palmdale, California, created a “musical road” in honor of R. Lee Ermey, who did such a great portrayal of the hard-nosed Marine sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. When a car drives over the specially designed grooved pavement at 45 mph, the road plays the “Marines’ Hymn.”