This National Day holiday I …
- … flew south to Fujian Province with Bliss — whose ancestors are from Fujian — and her friend Emily, who is visiting from Seattle. My photos from the four-day trip can be found at Flickr. (They can also be found in the Shanghai Diaries photo gallery — I spent a good chunk of yesterday making sure that section of the site was up to date — but, really, I suggest you view the photos on Flickr. Better. Easier. We should be making a total switch to Flickr with the coming redesign of the site.)
- … got a little bit wet thanks to Typhoon Longwang. But was happy to have avoided the flood of people that hit Shanghai. Ri-f*cking-diculous.
- … missed out on the hot springs at Xiamen’s Riyuegu Resort (thanks to the typhoon), but settled for a private room at The Retreat, where I got an hour-long massage, soaked in a hot tub treated with aromatherapy oils … and got my ears cleaned.
- … became an uncle, again.
- … rediscovered the fact that I actually do like Chinese food. Quite a bit.
- … got lost on Gulangyu Island … again.
- … repeatedly bombarded Andrea with questions about what to do/where to go/how to get there in Xiamen. Felt kind of bad, but she is the editor of What’s On Xiamen. Andrea always kindly obliged. I gave her a Shanghaiist t-shirt for her troubles — nothing says “thank you” like a little shameless self-promotion!
- … took a great day-trip into Fujian’s rural Nanjing Province to soak in a little Hakka culture. Was amazed at the size of their tu lou earthen roundhouses. (If you are traveling to Xiamen, I highly recommend a travel agent named Apple. She speaks English and can be emailed at lemon60606(@)hotmail.com.)
- … bought one of these hats for 5 kuai.
- … bought this painting from my friends at oceansbridge.com headquarters in Xiamen.
- … went to a masseuse/chiropractor in Xiamen recommended by Andrea. A burly man, he was unable to crack my back. Is this a good or bad sign?
- … was unable to fit a Blue Frog “Montana Burger” into my mouth.
- … met with a Singapore-based book editor about my book proposal … and received a couple more rejections from the US (news I’m sure Billy Baldwin is very happy to hear).
- … discovered a great new sandwich shop in Shanghai. Very cheap, and near my apartment, too. It’s called Nangka Cafe.
- … listened to Chad Van Gaalen’s great new album again and again and again.
- … confirmed that the pork ribs at Di Shui Dong are among my favorite dishes available at local restaurants.
- … likely gained a few pounds.
- … found out that there is a very good chance I will be playing the role of Santa Claus in an upcoming Chinese Pizza Hut commercial.
- … tried to convince friends and family that China’s new tightened control of the internet likely won’t affect me. Am I being naive?
- … started viewing season two of Lost and still can’t figure out why it won the Emmy for best drama … or why I can’t seem to stop watching it.
- … watched England qualify for the World Cup and realized that my illegal satellite hook-up is better than the one at the Big Bamboo.
- … spent one morning watching the Yankees lose, one watching them win and today woke up at 4 am to discover their game had been rained out.
- … wondered whether American celebrities will hold telethons for the victims of Pakistan’s awful earthquake, the same way they did for tsunamis and hurricanes this year.
10.09.2005, 4:53 PM · Bars, Culture, Diary, Food, Music, Observations, Photos, Sports, Television, Travel · Comments (2)
The best hummus in Shanghai
BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’
I “studied” for a semester in Athens, Greece. Course load included Greek Culture, Greek Language, Creative Writing: Poetry and something called the Philosophy of Love and Sex, taught by a gay man who wore leather pants and a purple scarf and drove to class on a Harley. Our earliest class was at 2 pm. All classes were pass/fail. And, for some reason, the school provided us with ample spending money. That, my friends, is a recipe for disaster. I gained 15 pounds that spring, despite playing shooting guard for the school basketball team. (Granted, we only practiced twice a week and most practices were interrupted by several cigarette breaks.) Copious amounts of beer and wine likely played a factor in the weight gain, but most of it can be attributed to the Greek food. It’s easy to fall in love with. I’m hoping the arrival of Mediterranean Sandwich and Coffee Bar to the neighborhood (it used to be way out in some place called Hongqiao) doesn’t equal another 15 pounds.
08.12.2005, 9:30 PM · Best of Shanghai, Food · Comments (3)
The best steak in Shanghai
BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’
I wasn’t expecting much from the Backyard Cafe, just a semi-normal sandwich within walking distance from the apartment. What I got was the best steak I’ve eaten in nearly three years in China. So tender, so tasty, so juicy … so ridiculously cheap. For just RMB 69, Backyard serves up a thick 220 gram beef tenderloin prepared on a proper outdoor grill. It comes topped with a black pepper sauce that provides just the right amount of spice and, as if that wasn’t enough, Backyard also throws in some spinach and potatoes, too. Still not enough? Add two ears of corn on the cob for 19 kuai. Yep, they’ve got that, too.
It was so perfect, I had to wonder — was this all a big joke? Was this some sort of Spanish Prisoner-esque ruse that ends with me returning to the restaurant the following day only to find that it’s really an abandoned warehouse and Steve Martin has run off with my life’s savings? (If so, the joke’s on you, Steve. I have no life’s savings. Ha!) Aware that Chinese television has been dabbling in reality, I started looking for hidden cameras, worried that I might be the unwitting subject of a new Shanghai TV production called The Make A Foreigner Think He Finally Gets A Good Steak In China And Then Visciously Rip His Heart Out And Dip It In That Brown Sauce His Ayi Drowns Everything In, Lycra Show. (It’s a working title.)
07.21.2005, 8:38 PM · Best of Shanghai, Featured, Food · Comments (3)
The best vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai
BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’
My girlfriend is a vegetarian. Actually, no she’s not. Well … kind of. Really, she’s a pescetarian, but no one knows what the hell that means. So, she usually just tells people that she’s a vegetarian who eats fish — a label that likely infuriates hardcore vegetarians. But at least it’s not as bad as those “I am a vegetarian … but I eat chicken” posers. (I actually know a girl who is a “vegetarian” … but eats barbecued lamb skewers. That amuses me.)
My girlfriend, by the way, is now very close to dropping her pesce- prefix altogether. Why? Because a fish recently attacked her … in our kitchen. Earlier on the day in question, I had heard some strange noises coming from that part of the apartment. A crashing. A rattling. I couldn’t place the sound. I checked it out, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and assumed the sound came from some sort of construction project in my building — people are always drilling, hammering, scraping, sawing, etc., in this place (this place meaning China) … and sound travels all too well in uninsulated apartment buildings … especially when I am trying to sleep. So, I thought nothing of the noise — until my girlfriend screamed.
03.30.2005, 1:28 AM · Best of Shanghai, Featured, Food, Observations · Comments (8)
The best pizza in Shanghai
BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’
My girlfriend thought we moved into our new apartment last June because it was walking distance from the Huangpi Nan Lu subway station and our gym. That’s what she thought. The real reason I thought the location was prime? Its proximity to pizza — the best damn pizza in Shanghai.
I like pizza. A lot. And this Best of Shanghai entry is easy to write. It’s no contest. Da Marco on Yandang Lu has the best pizza in the city. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. (Well, except when the Yankees were up three games to none over the Red Sox in this year’s American League Championship Series. Wait a minute — that doesn’t really help my case.)
Tastes in pizza — like all of these “best of” topics — are very subjective. If you grew up near Chicago, you probably like a thick crust. If you grew up near New York, thin is your thing. If you grew up in Shanghai, I am sorry — your country’s pizza is appalling. And pizza is the greatest thing since sliced, um, noodles.
Go to Da Marco and you’ll see what I mean.
12.21.2004, 2:33 AM · Best of Shanghai, Food · Comments (32)
The best hot dogs in Shanghai
Best of Shanghai is a new category on the site that will be updated from time to time. WARNING: This is one man’s opinion — but it’s usually right.
I broke a longstanding personal maxim over the weekend: Never utter the word “dog” while ordering at a Chinese restaurant. But at Orange Dog, a snack shop in the basement of Jiu Guang City Plaza, the big new mall on Nanjing Xi Lu next to Jing’an Temple, it’s hard not to — hot dogs are their specialty. And I’d rather eat a phallus of ground up pig snouts than poor old Rover any day. (Actually, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, hot dogs are not made of snouts and other sundry swine parts. They are made of “specially selected meat trimmings of beef and/or pork.” And I can’t think of any reason why the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council would lie about something like that. Oh, wait — yes I can.)
The best hot dogs I’ve had in China were cooked by my friend Luis at one of his famous back porch barbecues, which always include — curiously — several boxes of Kittyland cookies. Don’t tell Luis I told you this: His hot dogs usually come burned. But, in China, you take what you can get. I once ordered a hot dog in Lanzhou (I know, I know) at one of those Western knock-off restaurants where everything looks kind of Western but ends up being really weird. I got a big bun that looked even bigger because of what was inside it. It was a small Chinese sausage. You know, the reddish, kind of sweet ones. It was about the size of my middle finger, ironically. They sliced it in half length-wise and placed the two pieces end to end. Even then it didn’t fill up the bun. Making things worse, the meat was lathered in mayonnaise. Mayonnaise! Where was I? Britain?
So, I was excited to stumble upon Orange Dog, where everything looked and tasted normal.
12.07.2004, 8:07 PM · Best of Shanghai, Food · Comments (19)
