As Seen by TV

Shengjianbao, a type of Shanghainese baozi (dumpling) with pork, which when cooked melts into a soupy liquid, which effectively makes it a soup dumpling with the soup in it.  Delicious.

I had read this CNN article (”Worlds’s Greatest City: 50 Reasons Why Shanghai is #1“), and number 29 suggested Yang’s Fried Dumplings on Wujiang Lu (map).  So we hit it up (and who knew it was right outside Windows Underground?!) and goddamn they were good, good thing I read their tip first too: “Don’t dive into these shengjianbao all at once.  Carefully suck out the soup before you devour it.”

On our way to Yang’s, while walking across People’s Square, we came across a large group of older people holding photos and flyers, all in smaller groups having heated discussions with each other… yup, we had stumbled upon the “marriage market”.
Parents and grand parents arrange dates (and inevitable marriage) for their offspring (many of which don’t even know).  Weight, height, etc, and a sort of life resumé… some even have a price tag.  I can only imagine the lady my grandmother would hook me up with.

The “Mission: Lunch” series hits 2010… showcasing some [mis]fortunate Shanghai lunches.

The first 3 images should look familiar; KFC, McDonalds, and Yoshinoya.  While the last two are from a tiny hole-in-the-wall hot pot restaurant located at Ninghai East Road & Yunnan South Road (map), which packed with one hot pot spot next to the other.  Definitely recommended (if you can read Chinese, or don’t mind pointing at dishes on other tables).

Having the fried chicken from KFC was a first for me… yes yes, I know, I’m almost 30, half -American and have lived in Brooklyn for a decade, and never ever tried the fried chicken.  But now I know why.

As for McDonalds, I have that exact meal once a week… it amuses me that I eat more Mickey D’s/Mackers/McDo here in a month than I did in a year in NYC.  Let’s just say that as much as I love Chinese food, it’s nice to get something familiar.  Not to mention that many KFC and McDonalds restaurants deliver, are open 24hrs, and you can use your metro card to pay!

Then finally to top off the cultural fast food tour there’s Yoshinoya, Japanese fastfood, which has over 85 locations in Shanghai alone.  And I can’t for the life of me understand why.  It tasted exactly like Asian airline food… blah!

…and on the seventh day God created the potato.

Here is the whole family of Lay’s (乐事: “Happy Things” in Chinese) potato chips in China.

The cucumber ones are on my weekly grocery list, oh my they are über good, while the blueberry flavor tasted like powdered pancake mix, with salt.
As for lychee flavor… after testing out blueberry and mango, I couldn’t stomach the thought of a lychee flavored potato chip, considering I despise lychee anything.
The Chinese relationship with sweets is a strange thing… I bought sliced bread the other day (the entire bag was decorated with American flags, so it had to be decent… right?), and it was sweeter than a croissant dipped in chocolate and covered in powdered sugar.

Week 51, this is the second post in my “Mission: Lunch” series, which will showcase some of the lunches I have had the [mis]fortune of having.

First up was “the spiciest thing on our menu”, a hot beef noodle to which I added some Chinese cabbage at Ajisen Ramen, a Japanese restaurant located in the Infiniti Mall on Huai Hai Road (*update* just found out via wikipedia, that they have over 86 locations in Shanghai alone!)… good stuff (but not spicy enough for me!).

Second and third up are from the company hot spot, where we take new colleagues for their first lunch, definitely a good spot.  A Hunan-style restuarant located just around the corner of the office on Yunnan Road (south of Huai Hai Road).  Their spicy string beans are mighty good, although I am biased as this is one of my favorite dishes (picture #2).  Image #3 shows roughly 2/3’s of the dishes from that day… which included bullfrog (square dish), 2 varieties of tofu dishes (one with shredded pork that was amazing), cabbages, pork, chicken, normal eggs and quail eggs.

The last image is of a pickled pepper sort (very unlike the ones you can find in the US which have no spice-factor whatsoever), from a hot pot spot that were so damn tasty I just had to snap a shot.  I was with 2 other guys, and we held a little contest to see how many we could each eat.  Contestant #1 had zero (0).  Contestant #2 had three (3).  While contestant #3 had six (6).
I’ll let you decide which one was me.

Later that evening [after the spicy peppers] I finally knocked in my first 8-ball off a break… which I have been trying to do for years.  Yes, it was a good day…. yay me!

Happy St. Nick’s Day (the real Santa)!

Random images from the week… the best damn fried dumplings in Shanghai (so far), meat piles at my local supermarket (Tesco), and among the winnings are stuffed animals or packs of cigarettes!

Just got back from 5 days of shooting a seminar in Hangzhou, a picturesque city just over an hours train from Shanghai.

We were staying in a hotel in the tea village of Meijiawu, where the seminar was taking place. Don’t let the night exposures fool you, it was dark as hell… all of these images were taken with 15-200sec exposures.

For lunch/dinner we had some interesting stuff, it was my first time to eat goat, pig heart + tongue, and bullfrog… not to mention the regular stuff like river eel, pig intestine, tree fungus (delicious!!), and cooked chicken blood.

On one of the last evenings we were treated to a… interesting show which was located on a piece of land that can only be described as a Chinese Disneyland.  Fake mountains, over-priced “authentic” food, and all the staff walking around in traditional wardrobe from the various dynasties.  The show was pretty ridiculous… although it was nice to see a whole stage filled with beautiful Chinese girls belly-dancing followed by Indian-style dancing in outrages costumes (everything from full-on warrior battle gear to girls dressed as butterflies and lily pads).  I will also never forgive my colleague Kevin (aka “King Jian Ren”) for telling me not to bring my camera along!  Thanks jian!

The post title comes from the Chinese saying: 上有天堂，下有苏杭 which translates to “Heaven above, Suzhou and Hangzhou below.”

This is the first post in my “Mission: Lunch” series, which will showcase some of the lunches I have had the [mis]fortune of having over whichever given week.  This was a pretty damn good week… although I have to admit that some of these meals were prior to this past week, hopefully you forgive me.  Also forgive the iPhone camera quality…

First, a little background information… I work in an office building called the Huai Hai Tower located on Ren Min Road and (you guessed it) Huai Hai Road, in south Huangpo.

View SHlunch47 in a larger map.

The first two images are from lunch a couple weeks back, when it was still warm outside.  Kevin and I hit up a hole in the wall, this is ALL they served… tangyaun.  With 2 choices, vegetable or meat.  The meat ones were absolutely delicious, simliar to a dumpling with a pork gravy inside.  While the vegetable ones looked kinda like tea leaves mixed with crude oil, and were sweet as hell (*update*, wikipedia has me to believe they were actually filled with a “ground black sesame seeds mixed with sugar and lard“).

The next two images are from another little place located on Yunnan South Road, just off of Ren Min Road…  authentic spicy chicken hotpot (notice the chicken foot!).

While the last two are from a random restaurant Kanishk and I randomly walked into (for dinner, hence the beer!) somwhere around Linping Road in Hongkou.   It was filled with locals, so you know it had to be good.  There wasn’t a thing we ordered that wasn’t spicy (besides the rice), I’d have to say that the Hunan-style cuisine is by far my favorite.  The last picture is of one of my favorite dishes, consisting of green beans that have a light crunch to them, cooked with chili peppers and mixed with shredded meat (in this case pork, but shrimp & beef are also used).

So I just got back from lunch with 2 colleagues, and not only did we have one of my favorite types of meals in the world, but it was probably one of the best too… Chinese hot pot!  The restaurant is called 重庆小天鹅 and is located right by my office.  Of course I had to order the spicy edition, and it was pretty damn spicy.  Ooh man, just looking at these pictures wants me to go back for seconds, thirds, and fourths.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

We (they) ordered lamb, pork, ball variations (fish ball, shrimp ball, and beef ball), 3 vegetable baskets (including a mushroom assortment and 2 others including things like lettuces, cabbages, sweet potato, seaweed, tofu, bean sprouts, and lotus root).

There was also a “sauce bar”, where you took a bowl and made your own concoction of a dipping sauce… with bases like satay, beef, XO, soy, peanut, chili, etc… and then toppings like fresh garlic, chives, coriander, chillies, and crushed peanuts.  I’m not even naming half, because I’m actually just listing the things I recognized.  I made two variations for myself, a spicy beef sauce mixed with fish sauce, coriander, garlic, and chillies.  And the second was a sweeter satay with peanuts and chives.  I’m still drooling.