Puffy Foods

are you ready for the sublime

2007-04-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

So Mr. Grumpypants and I were in Toronto in January, and when in Toronto anytime, one MUST go to Rikishi Japanese Restaurant (Bloor Street near Shaw).

Mr. Grumpypants becomes Mr. Happypants if he can have Uni.

Yujin, the sushi chef is the best and his wife (forgive me for not knowing her name) creates the most spectacular dishes in the kitchen. We have always had the most amazing sushi, and everytime we go, there are new and exciting dishes to try. The latest and outrageously good was the shitake mushroom wrapped in a shiso leaf then tempura battered and deep-fried. Oh the flavours, oh the textures, oh the colours!!

Go there at once and try it!

Whoa, asparagus is in season!

2007-04-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

So, I have a friend that doesn't like a certain celebrity chef- says his tongue is too darn big for his mouth, that he probably drools all over the food and can't really play the drums, BUT I really like Jamie Oliver and I recently made his Tray Baked Salmon (from his first cookbook). The recipe calls for green beans, but I opted to substitute asparagus and it was fabulous...(you can't go wrong with asparagus and anchovies)...and the salmon is so succulent!

Ginger Kitties

2006-12-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

'tis the season to make Gingerbread cookies...this year I looked to my lovely kitties for inspiration. Mere seconds after this picture was taken, the cookie with the orange dot lost its head to the rapid swing of a tail.

Garlic Festival

2006-12-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

So, this is a little work avoidance. Trying to get a paper finished but my head is swimming with thoughts of food. My sister gave me a string of 10 different types of garlic that she picked up at a garlic festival in the Kootenays. I've been meaning to sample them slowly, but some of them had started to dry out, so Mr. Grumpypants, Captain Bacon and I sat down and ate the works. I roasted them with some olive oil drizzled on top and we drank a lovely bottle of Rhone wine - thank you Captain Bacon (more details Cap'n??- http://vitaminw.vox.com/). Now, the problem is, I've forgotton most of the names, but a clear favourite was a variety called Fauquier with White Max in second place. Some had lovely hints of musty apple, but the Fauquier was a subtle, creamy flavour.

It's Shintori Time

2006-10-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

I talked about this crazy
(alien loading dock)
Japanese restaurant in Shanghai
so here are some pictures
this is an inside shot of
the "tatami rooms"

You think you've had tempura,
but have you had this...shrimp in taro coats - whoa - yum!
The taro is cut into strips and wrapped around the shrimp.

One of our dinner companions suggested that this dish was called
Beef over the River Kwai - that's a mound of shaved ice
under the bamboo bridge
under the amazing beef!

Need I say more - sashimi...when you're in Shanghai and getting weary of the oily food (though it is delicious) - try something RAW!

...more Beijing Food

2006-09-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

In Beijing there is a fantastic shop that sells relishes, hot sauces and pickles. The place is full of blue and white ceramic pots containing odd and wonderful foodstuffs for creating their specialties. This is just a sample of what they have...

Bok choy with black mushrooms! Pay attention food stylists - this food was completely edible - it looks shiny and delicious because there's lotsa oil-yum!

Seaweed salad - a little crunchy, a little spicy and very fresh.

mmmm fava beans, kidney beans and "I know not what else" (the leafy herbs may have been parsley, mustard greens or hmm?)

Peking Duck

2006-08-31T09:14:00.000-07:00

This is the delicious Peking Duck - the steamer in the background holds the crepes (pancakes) and the head of the duck has been cut in two and is beneath the slices on the plate to the back right. Oh yeah - we ate everything!
Oh - and the dish on the left is pickled cucumber - nice and sour!

Can you see the lovely ducks in a row - (hanging inside the oven!)

2006-08-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

The moment we've been waiting for...some pictures of the food - just in case the description wasn't enough!

Pig's ear - I was told it's kinda rolled into a terrine kinda thang - the white bits are chewy and the pinky bits are deliciously porky!

MMMMMM dumplings! Careful, there may be soup inside and you don't want to miss a drop.

Beijing August 8

2006-08-10T04:24:00.000-07:00

We spent the day hanging out in Beihei Park - with a white Pagoda, a beautiful Lake and Lotus flowers blooming! We heard people playing music on erhu and pipa as well as some women singing and dancing. There were loads of boats in the lake - paddle boats (with duck heads) and small motorboats. It's supposed to be cooler in Beijing - but it's 100% humidity and around 33 C.

We had dinner in a little place north of our guest hotel - delicious salad of fava and kidney beans, a seaweed salad with chilies and sesame seeds and roast duck (not THE roast duck). We are staying in a guest hotel down a maze of alleyways called Hutongs in Beijing.

Next Day
According to a guide, there are 3 things you must do when you come to Beijing: eat Peking Duck, go to Peking Opera and visit the Forbidden City. (I think maybe the Great Wall should be in there as a fourth). Well, Mr. Grumpypants and I managed the 3 must-do's in one day! We spent the day at the Forbidden City - super crowded, enormous and loads of construction. Mr. Grumpypants was grumpy about it - felt like we were in a theme park. I was awed by the size and particularly the beautiful gardens at the north end of the city.

The Peking Duck was NOT disappointing! On the way to your table in this crazy 4 storey, 140 year old restaurant, you pass the brick ovens where the ducks are roasted. There are stacks of fruit wood logs ready for stoking the fires and you see the glorious birds cooking away inside. When your bird is ready - and we did eat a whole duck - a chef wheels it out to your table and carves it in front of you - the first pieces of skin are deftly removed and handed to you to taste. They use cleavers for the carving and it is precise. The skin is perfect - crisp, fatty, and brown. The meat is succulent! The way to eat the duck is to wrap it in a crepe (called pancakes here), with plum sauce and thinly sliced scallions (white parts only). Though all we wanted was the duck, we did manage a lovely salad of celery and lily bulb as well as some pickles to start.

The Peking Opera was also fantastic. We went to the Huguang Guildhall where opera has been performed since 1807. The space has over the top decoration - bright colours, small landscape scenes and decorative elements filling all space on the walls and ceiling. The tables are crammed in to the main floor with a balcony above. The stage occupies half the main floor, with a yellow silk embroidered backdrop. There were three pieces performed. The live band was great - Mr. Grumpypants thought the drummer was particularly lively. The show is part opera, stories based on the emperors or folk tales, and part acrobatics, so the main players have to sing, dance and be able to do tricks. Audience participation is encouraged - fun!

Shanghai, August 5

2006-08-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

Had Lychee martini's at a bar called Manifesto. They served tapas - pay per item - so we had two of a few different things - like crostini with goat's cheese and with fruit compote, teeny pita with felafel and minty/cumin yogurt and sesame seeds, chicken sate with peanut sauce, and ciabata crostini with crispy eggplant, fontina and beets...Chinese? nah - a little western food for a change. The bar was all style but we really enjoyed the sister sledge CD track that skipped for about 20 minutes before anyone noticed.

For a quick food (somehow, not really fast food), we often go around the corner to a little place that does barbecue duck, pork etc...they have quite an extensive list so we try all kinds of things, the other day it was leek shoots with pine nuts, dry shrimp, clams, ginger and red/green peppers...lovely! I'm not sure if I mentioned that this place also does fabulous wonton's - loaded with huge shrimp.

So I decided to try a cooking class - the advert said fully equipped kitchen etc...a total bust. We ended up in a small room in a hotel - probably only 10 by 12 feet with 12 people in there - the table had a small table top stove and we learned to cook stir-fry - not sure if anyone outside of China has heard of this before, but you take a roundish fry pan called a wok....blah, blah. The only new ingredient was the fermented rice (rice soaked in light vinegar - kinda tastes like Sake/japanese ginger) really delicious. So we had a demonstration on Sichuan shrimp and as my class buddy suggested "tofu snot soup" since the consistency looks like snot.

The latest favourite is a Shanghai specialty - Shanghai dumplings - where the dumplings are filled with a ground pork mixture and fatty flavourful gelatin that becomes liquid when steamed - to eat them, you pour a light vinegar onto the dumpling and try not to spill or shoot the dumpling juice at anyone else - you don't want to waste the precious fluids!

Off to Beijing tonight on an overnight train - next post from there.

Shanghai July 28

2006-07-27T18:41:00.000-07:00

The food adventures never end in this city...

The other night we went to a "typical Shanghainese" restaurant called Bao Luo - small and unassuming at the entrace, but you walk back into a cavernous room with bright lights and loads of people smoking (many people eat while they are smoking). This place was particularly messy - the waitrons had greasy dingy clothes - but the food was delicious - we had broccoli simmered in broth with whole garlic cloves, salty eggwhite (a little like feta cheese) and ginger, a plate of steamed kale with crab meat, tofu and egg (looked a little revolting, but tasted great), and swiss steak - Mr. Grumpypants and I weren't sure if it was meat, but then realized it was closer to a salisbury steak than a grilled sirloin. Very strange texture. We were not brave enough to order the "mater convulvulous with tofu" (eh?). The tea they served with the meal had the taste of chamomile and corriander seed - quite yummy.

One of the exquisite meals we ate this week was in an elegant place called Yin. The style of the restaurant was old Shanghai with wood floors, chinese style furniture - with natural wood finish and screens separating the tables. The food was also elegant - the cold starters included: soy bean and lotus salad, melt in your mouth duck, beef with spicy orange sauce. The mains were chicken in Shouxiang wine sauce -thin wine broth with loads of spice, pork ribs in a savory black bean sauce and duck with orange sauce.

We attended a concert on Wednesday - Mr. Grumpypants was recording, but I got to go to the pre-concert reception - wine was served (the first I've had since we got here-though not Chinese wine - some Aussie Shiraz.) The snacks were fab - pumpkin flan with a coconut milk tapioca served in a Chinese spoon, bite size morsels of spring roles, eggplant and pork satay, and perfect little dragonfruit tarts! The service and presentation in Shanghai is unbelievable. The concert was 3 hours long - whoa - good thing the musicians were all so amazing! Then at midnight we were ushered off to a shopping mall where a sit down dinner service was to take place. Traditional Shanghai food - the starters: pig's ear (done like a terrine and sliced)the flavour was delicious but the mixed texture of soft pork and chewy cartilage was strange (it was absolutely stunning to look at - a little psychadelic), small fish (size of sardines) deep fried with a sweet sticky coating - delicous, lotus seed and dates, chopped kale, and jellyfish (very rubbery crunchy - ooh - I don't think I liked that!)

The mains seemed endless, almond encrusted prawns-yum, scallops with huge slices of pickled ginger, dried scallops stuffed into green mellon, combination plate of roasted duck, chicken and pork, bok choy greens simmered with bamboo shoots, roast chicken, etc...most people had given up eating by the 5th plate - they finished with a warm coconut milk tapioca - not tooo sweet, but delicious.

Ok - so one more and I'll stop this blog: Last night we went to an amazing Japanese restaurant called Shintori. First we had a cocktail at People bar(with a puzzle door to get into the place). These are sibling establishments - the designs are similar with concrete surroundings, industrial steel tables and very dark. The restuarant is enormous - black tables and chairs, wooden ventetian blinds between tables creating a modern style tatami room. There must have been 30 chefs in the open kitchen on the main floor - we were on the second floor - and the food was sent upstairs in a glass elevator (modern dumb waiter). The food matched the surroundings - we had plates of sashmi served on granite slabs, or rough fired ceramics, the foil dish was served on a super heated volcanic rock, and the beef sashimi was perfect, served on a bamboo platform atop a crushed ice mound! The sake was chilled and delicious. I'd go again tonight, but I must try something new!

Shanghai, July 21

2006-07-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hangzhou was a whirlwind trip - I think the highways here are a scary - I thought it was bad in Calgary - but the cars are nuts and change lanes so quickly and closely that you're sure the bus you're in will hit it. (Actually there was a horrible bus accident the day before we went) I'm thinking trains will be the way to go. Hangzhou is famous for West Lake - a beautiful lake with gardens surrounding most of it and the city to one end. The best was the amazing Lingyin temple that seemed to go on forever. You enter the temple area through a grotto where Buddhas are carved into the rock face. There are paths and stairs to them along the small river. You finally reach the temple buildings which are numerous and house enormous Buddhas. Mr. Grumpypants and I climbed to the very top temple building to find three Buddhas carved from wood with their clothing and lotus flower seats painted white. These Buddhas must have been over 25 m.

Enough about the sightseeing, the lunch was also amazing. This area is famous for its tea plantations thus a delicious dish of pork in a light gravy made with tea - now I'm thinking the tea was the Pu-Ehr type - a little earthy, kinda like sweet tobacco and very tasty. Also prawns (in the shell) loaded with salt and pepper, sweet and sour pork - on the sour side, yum, snap peas, chicken wings, tomato soup, bok choy, fish with green onions and crab legs with ginger, green onion and glutinous rice sitcks.

We also visited a tea plantation where they grow green tea. In the style of a wine tour we wandered around the grounds, then had a demonstration on the roasting of tea, and how to make a proper cup of green tea. We were served the spring tea - delicious and fresh tasting...it's called Dragon's Well.

Long blog today because of the spectacular meal last night. We were on the 9th floor of an insanely large shopping centre (someone said the largest in the world and I wouldn't doubt it- I think it was called the Super Brand Centre). We ate in the fanciest place I've seen here- called Yuga - over the top - black slate floors, or wood inlaid with stone, sculptured glass walls and many individual sunken private rooms that you step down into or elevated dining rooms hovering above a ground surface of rocks.

The tables were set with a few dishes when we sat down - here's the list:
deep fried anchovies (or some other small fish) into a crunchy slightly sweet morsel, smoked mackeral (or some other fish) presented emerging from a banana leaf wrapping, edamame, lotus (covered in a thick semi sweet goo), pickled cucumber and slices of what I think was a chicken loaf stuffed with italian sausage. So that was the starter.

Next came the rice wraps with duck, green onion and celery (make your own), sweet and sour pork, chicken in a light sauce covered in shaved ice, white fish (like halibut in flavour and texture) covered with green onion strips that had been flash fried to a delicious crispness, beef with garlic chips, enormous prawns (lightly battered and deep fried with a sweet sticky sauce), prawn heads stuffed with a ground meat mixture, ginger pork with strips of pineapple, served inside the carved pineapple, - oh here's an odd one, slow cooked lamb with mashed potatoes and those small white onions, offal soup with peculiar but tasty fungus, croissant like veggie puffs, and a sweetish, starchy soup with little sweet, marshmallow like, balls (are these bubble tea bubbles?). Oops, I forgot the frog stew - loaded with chillies and unbelievably hot. I also missed the Chinese greens with the egg - the egg white was an amber coloured jelly and the yolk was a beautiful green. I hope I haven't missed anything else, I was having a hard time noting things and keeping up with the dishes being presented.

Just a note - Mr. Grumpypants missed the whole thing because he was working, now that is something to be grumpy about!!!

oops - missed the 18th entry

2006-07-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

Had dinner in the Pudong district last night - it's the east side of the river - thus the name (dong=east) (pu=river (I think?)). We went to a place called Shanghai Uncle on the 8th floor of Times Square...and like so many places we had an equal number of servers to the number of people dining! The specialty of this place is their slow cooked pork ribs with pine nuts - which were delicious - falling off the bone then melting in your mouth. The real treat was the veal with garlic. Again the meat was perfectly cooked and melting in your mouth and the garlic was thinly sliced and deep fried into perfectly golden toasty chips. I know I've mentioned the greens before, but I just love the bean sprouts - this time with a spicey shallotty sauce. Mr. Grumpypants loved the baked fish with a rich dark hoisin sauce and also the "five ways cooked pork" that arrived flaming on it's tin foil platter.

To top off the evening, we headed to a new bar on the Pudong promenade which affords a splendid view of the river. We were interested in the Snowbar - a room kinda like a meat locker (without the meat hooks and hanging carcasses) set at -20C. The staff outfit you with North Face down parkas (no boots - we were wearing sandals)...the bar and counters are all ice with some snow thrown around for atmosphere. They only serve vodka, but have a large selection. The poor bartender had had enough of the cold. The two Swedes with us sang a Swedish drinking song, we downed our vodka then headed to the posh bar upstairs for lychee martinis - mmmm. It's amazing to watch the huge container ships moving into the ports like ghost ships beside the touristy river boats.

I should mention that the night before (after some entertaining charades with the cab driver) we ended up in some high end club - complete with thumping music but relatively empty, drinking lychee martinis that were really more like lychee smoothies with a little booze. We ate cheese and basil pizza and beetroot ravioli - both pretty darn tasty - but odd food to be eating here.

Shanghai, July 19

2006-07-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

Spent the morning wandering through Dongtai Antique Market - (not sure how many things are real antiques since there are an awful lot of duplicates) It's still fun to look at all the stuff - think about your favourite flea market except that everything here is Chinese - Fun. We also made it to Fangbang Road - the "Old Shanghai Road" where the old architecture is brilliant, but the area is certainly all about the tourists, so all space is occupied by shops selling their wares. By the time we made it there - the sun was high and cooking us - Mr. Grumpypants came out without his hat!

We did have a yummy mushroom ramen for lunch - at least three types of mushrooms, crunchy kelp and a delicious broth along with some lovely little dumplings on the side.

Headed back to the hotel shortly after lunch - THE HEAT, THE HEAT - I think it hit 36C with humidity...

Had dinner in the hotel Shanghai Moon restaurant...chicken (with the bone in) cut into little pieces in a rich chestnut gravy - with loads of chestnuts, a plate of Shanghai noodles, and what I refer to as the manure tofu - fermented deep fried tofu - whoa - very stinky, but Mr. Grumpypants liked it - go figure.

Off to Hangzhou tomorrow for a look at West Lake, a temple and a tea plantation.

Shanghai July 15 - or later

2006-07-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

Went to the Museum of Contemporary Art - different from the Shanghai Art Museum - there was a pretty good show on Italian Art and Design since 1950. The experimental photos by Ugo Mulas were favourites of Mr. Grumpypants. I liked the rocking couch and the heaving felt lampshade! (oh yeah - it was moving).

Mr. Grumpypants and I headed off to the Jade Buddha Temple - a little out of the way, but the subways are fabulous and easy to get around. This temple is fantastic - not one but many Buddhas. The Jade guy is about 4 ft sitting, carved from one piece of white jade. The oddest thing about the temple is the shops that bookend every Buddha in the place. People are kneeling in prayer while 2 feet away someone is buying a Buddha ornament. The entrance is crowded with wounded people in wheelchairs and on crutches hoping for some money from the temple goers. We found a side door to exit and missed them on the way out. Mr. Grumpypants did fortuitously get a recording of the monks chanting and singing - it was beautiful.

We managed to eat some more of those crazy tofu wasabe morsels, along with barbecued duck and green beans (sliced and fried with shredded dried fish and garlic) - all the greens are really bright! love it.

I managed to get up the Pearl Tower (in the Pudong district) yesterday morning...right up to the "space module" at 350 metres. There is an elaborate elevator system to get you up and down - different elevators every time you want to get higher. It is quite the view - Shanghai never stops - even through the haze, all you can see are more buildings.

The real treat about going to the Pudong district is that you have to get across the river. You could take a ferry, but why would you if you could go under the river, in a cable car, with strobe lights, lasers, lava lamp projections and whacky announcements like "Paradise and Hell", "Fossil Variants", or "Massive Magma".

Shanghai July 12

2006-07-15T03:31:00.000-07:00

Well I've missed a few days, but we've been eating in the hotel - getting Mr. Grumpypants back into Shanghai shape. The dumpling soup through room service is delicious so it has become the easy thang to eat.

I did sneak out and had a beer and a whacky little tofu dish yesterday. The soft tofu was smothered in wasabe, then breaded (including some coconut) and deep fried. It was served sliced open into six little dangerous morsels on the plate. I have to admit that I was scraping some of that wasabe outta the last couple of bites - whoa - my eyes were watering!!!

We went to find the Doland Museum of Modern Art today - found it, but it was closed and between shows, I guess we'll make it back another day. The treasure in that neighbourhood was the Korean restaurant. We had Bulgogi and veggies - kinda stir fried beef with veg served on a cast iron dish with a mushroom beefy light gravy, a rice cake with spicy Korean sauce - the cakes were kinda like gnocci and the sauce was tomato based and perfectly spicy with a few fresh chilies, and we also had a tempura like basket of veggies, though they were more like Belgian frittes in their skinny little way - ymmm. The meal came with an assortment of little dishes to start - roasted zuchini with hot sauce, steamed crunchy seaweed, daikon with hot sauce, kimchi like cabbage, lightly steamed carrots and celery with red peppers.

We drank big bottles of Kirin which did us in...whoa the heat - have I mentioned that it's like a big wet sauna here - oh yeah- I probably have. It takes about twenty minutes to stop sweating once you get into an air conditioned room. Shaving my head may be more comfortable!

Lotus must be in season because the street folk carrying baskets around have loaded baskets of them - they look amazing.

Yo - for some reason - perhaps censors - I cannot actually see my blog and thus cannot see any comments - If you want to send info, send me email.

Shanghai July 10 - again a little late

2006-07-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

I'm getting my days mixed up now - I don't know what I've been eating, drinking or doing - perhaps the heat is getting to me - I've wilted!

I went on a bus tour yesterday - visiting Suzhou (gardens and silk factory) and Zhouzhuang - canal city (apparently Venice of the East). (Mr. Grumpypants couldn't make, I think he ate a bad clam at JJ Rice Hut and had to stay home to get rid of it). I've never been to Venice so I'm not sure how to compare them, but this town, while absolutely beautiful and picturesque, is pretty much there for the tourists. It was packed - being Sunday- and in the late afternoon everyone who owned a shop was sleeping, so thankfully no hard sell of products.

We had a great lunch at the Bamboo Garden Hotel - lazy Suze style - with salty greens - mmm, ginko nuts and dates, fava beans and barbecued duck as appetizers, then came the delicious slow roasted pork in a rich brown gravy with dates - the intestines were included (braided or knotted) and very tasty as well. There was also roasted chicken, more steamed greens (way less salty), steamed cabbage, snap peas with thinly sliced pork and egg drop soup. We also had some beer - always around 3.6% and tasting pretty watered down - probably the right beer for this climate.

I've bought Suntory beer for the hotel room, as well as some rice wines to sample. The wines are quite like the colour and taste of an Amontillado, though not as refined. I'm keeping it in the fridge as I don't have the energy to drink booze that isn't cold.

Today a couple of us set off for the fabric market, but ended up winding our way through an antique market - whoa - loads of great stuff. All bartering is done using a calculator - they type their price, then you type yours - its can go on quite a while - apparently Canadians don't like to part with their money so we play hard. I bought a couple of beautiful embroidered pieces from Guizhou, a funky bracelet and a fan - a necessary accessory here!

We ate lunch in a Japanese place, gyoza, fried noodles with seaweed and other greens and seaweed sesame soup.

Shanghai July 8 (oops - a little delayed)

2006-07-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

Set off to a work function with Mr. Grumpypants, that included a delicious lunch with a large selection of hot and cold entrees. The green curry monkfish was delicious as was the roast duck (sorry Stephers - but we love duck).

Found the Blue and White Museum - It's down one of the alleys that I've been dying to explore and it's not really a museum, just a couple of rooms with some great display cabinets...it does, however, have a great little gift shop. What I really would've liked to see was the back room where all the work was happening.

Thai food for dinner - pretty close to what we can get at home, with the exception of the type of fish - we never recognize the English names they give them. But the squid is called a "fish sleeve". The other difference is that when they say it'll be spicy - they mean it - none of this guessing if the Western palette can take the heat!
The restaurant was kinda adobe style - the bathrooms had mini tv screens in them and there was a party room with chairs shaped like elephants. The mural on the wall was a beach scene, but there was also a typically Chinese limestone rock sculpture at one end.

Bathrooms have become a real point of discussion amongst travelers and knowing which places have decent ones has become important. I don't think anyone goes out without their own supply of toilet paper and we're developing our quads with the Chinese style crouchers!!

Shanghai July 7

2006-07-07T03:15:00.000-07:00

Ok - last night's dinner was amazing. We went to this little place just up the street from the hotel called Di Shui Dong. You could easily walk by the place because it's on the second floor and you have to go up a dark stairway to get there. The room reminded me of a low budget Mexican style joint - complete with chili peppers hanging everywhere...but there's the clue - they don't ask if you like mild, med, or hot - everything you get is ...HOT.

The cuisine is Hunanese - a province inland that does not suffer from the humidity, just the heat! ha! We ordered chopped pork, lotus root, ribs, broccoli and rice. The ingredients of the chopped pork dish were: fresh chili peppers, dry chili peppers, green onions, garlic and tripe (pork stomach) - ingredients listed in descending order of quantity - whoa! The lotus root was also stir fried with chilies, garlic and chives, the broccoli was steamed in a broth with garlic and a few chilies. My favourite was the pork ribs, dry rubbed with cumin seed, coriander seed, garlic, chives and chilies with a healthy sprinkling of the mixture on top. Mr. Grumpypants was bright red and his nose was running by the time we were half way through the food. We managed to consume lots of watery beer - perfect with this food.

I'll be going back for the ribs...I've heard the skewered shrimp are delicious as well as the hot pots.

Shanghai Journal Day1

2006-07-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Shanghai to a wall of heat and a smell of something like musty, slightly composted vegetables (hmm with a hint of manure) quite interesting (I like it anyway). It takes about sixty seconds for your clothes to stick to you. The bus ride in from the Pudong Airport (which is enormous) was trippy and once you hit Shanghai and cross the bridge all you can see are cranes for loading ships - they look like enormous crabs all along the river on both sides. The roads are nuts - horns mandatory - buses, bicycles, mopeds, and cars all sharing space.

First meal was in a restaurant not unlike a Calgary Chinese food place. Big round tables with lazy susan in the centre. Jasmine tea, salty peanuts, small salad (or condiment) of soy bean, chopped leafy greans and a little bit of pickle- very tasty. The tofu dishes are my favourites - creamy textured soft tofu with chillies and garlic. Greens, looked like the greens from springs onions, but not oniony. Taro root in a big soft cake broiled with panko flakes (a little heavy and stodgy), beef with sugar snap peas (yum) and chilies, shrimp in thick translucent sauce with, hmmm, melon(?), lemon chicken, barbecued squid with oyster sauce, two noodle dishes, followed by sliced melon for dessert. I'll need to learn about Chinese veggies and spices. On the whole not a departure from what we get at home and all good...

This morning the breakfast buffet was a mix of Western and Chinese food - The smoked trout was great, loads of dumplings with different fillings, congee, cereals, bacon, sausage, pancakes, mutton stew {huh?}, smoked salmon, toast, fruit etc. you get the idea. Nothing seemed to strange, though a woman at our table this morning, trying something new, made a strange noise then spat something out promptly followed by a rinse of orange juice.

We wandered the streets, drank two litres of water before a lunch of noodles and fried pea sprouts served with a broth- delicious. The subway is the best way to get around - fast, cheap and air conditioned. It's going to be short days outside - the crowds aren't so bad, but the heat and humidity is exhausting.

2006-06-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

Chinese Food

2006-06-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Shanghai on Sunday and WAS excited about the new and whacky foods to discover until I was talking to a woman who's brother had just come back from China. She said the Chinese are crazy about really really fresh food - so in order to prove that your food is fresh, they serve it to you still breathing! Her brother was served a whole fish that had been prepared with it's head wrapped in a towel, the rest of it's body deep fried then served up on a platter with it's mouth still moving!

There was also a story about a live fish having one fillet removed then dropped back into the tank for the next customer. This is a little frightening to me. I mean, I like rare beef, I love sushi, but I'd rather the creature was dead before I ate it, that way I won't try to give it a name and make friends with it.