Charmant, Shanghai

I always forget if it’s desert or dessert…but the interweb tells me:

“I would like to have two desserts, but one desert is enough!”.

This might help some people, but now I have to remember a number as well as both words…and why would one desert be enough? I can think of loads of deserts in the world: Sahara…ummm….That one in Africa…anyway…

So the other day we went to Charmant on Huahai Road to have dessert…I don’t remember what I’d had for lunch immediately before (which probably means it was Ajisen Ramen), but I’ll never forget the icy welcome from the restaurant (or the sordid story that Boston told me in the cab there…thanks for that!)

Ok so we were meant to meet two friends there, but they were running late (or ‘on Shanghai time’ (I hate people who say things like that…’Shanghai time ho ho ho everyone’s late ho ho ho i’m so knowledgeable about social quirks ho ho ho’)), so we ordered this peanut butter smoothie thing. It didn’t look like no smoothie I’d ever seen before:

It was really quite peanutty (which I suppose should have been expected), but I kept thinking it should taste a bit more ice-creamy…and it didn’t. Thankfully, the other two arrived and started eating the rest of it, which meant we could move on to PHASE 2:

The icy brown sugar white balls and black balls underneath and little green bits thingy! Ok, I might now know it’s PWOPER NAME but I do know…it’s from Taiwan….it has ice in it…and ummm..brown sugar. And it tastes great! It tasted so good in fact, we ordered more ice and more bally thingies to go in it…although looking back it may have been a mistake as all four of us had a slight (extreme) sugar rush for the next 72 hours.

The other slight downside is what happens to it after it melts…

You don’t need to say it, I know.

Address:
Charmant (小城故事)
1st Floor, 1414 Huaihai Zhong Lu, near Fuxing Xi Lu

My Life Story (abridged)

I noticed that quite a few people click on ‘About’ on my site…so I decided to put some info there! Well, not info…more like a photo taxi ride through my so-called life…starting just before I was born…and ending just before today!

Shanghai Shenhua v Juventus @ Fiat Cup, Shanghai Stadium

On Saturday night we went to the enormous Shanghai Stadium to watch the Fiat Cup – a three-way (don’t) football tournament between Juventus and Parma (of Italy) and Shanghai Shenhua – our local heroes!

The setup was three 45 minute matches, in a round-robin style. I think the organizers expected Shanghai expo 2010 to get a drubbing in the first two fixtures, which would set up a Parma v Juve final….but in fact Shanghai 2010 pulled off a huge upset by beating Juve in the second game (and they were robbed blind in the first game because they should have had a penalty right at the end to draw it…i’m talking STONEWALL here).

It was a pretty fun experience, made even better by Niu Nai’s appearance:

…as well as the other twenty people we met for the first time on the night. Parma won overall, beating Juve on penalties after their game was 3-3 after 45 minutes! Surely the highest scoring half in Italian football history….

More videos of Juve being humbled here:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlCQPpejw88
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYKSNW82iBE

As it happens…

Rob Knievel Jumps 24 Trucks at King’s Island – That is NEWS baby!

Condoms ‘too big’ for Indian men – This important science story from December 2006 is currently top of the BBC News ‘most read’ list…

Mars probe touches down – …whereas this insignificant throwaway article, is not…

Kobe Bryant (Me) Jumps Over Pool w/ Snakes (Black Mambas) – Ok we get it he can jump over stuff because he’s got mad cgi-ups.

Facebook battles Google over access to user data – They’ll be part of the same company by Christmas!

New “Indiana Jones” film tops Memorial Day weekend box office – Starring Shia LaBeouf! and some other chumps

Sex symbol Jessica Alba quitely weds long-time beau – Well she’s not getting her stuff back now :(

Victim’s former friend identifies R. Kelly, girl in sex tape – Trapped in the CLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exerciset (jail cell).

CoCo Ichibanya, Shanghai

I’ve been meaning to write about this place for ages but it kept falling through the cracks…until now! CoCo Ichibanya (Zun Yi Nan Lu branch, near Hooters!) is Turkey’s favourite lunchtime destination (when I say Turkey I mean Turkish people aged 23 living in Shanghai in my house), and it serves pretty cheap (30rmb or so) curry meals.

Coco’s gimmick is that you can really customize how it comes, specifying how spic you want it, what ‘extras’ you want in it and also how much rice you get at the side (if you’re me, you ask for ‘as little as possible kthxbye). It also has a great motto: Good smell, good curry! Super.

The variety of meats (and other stuff) you can have in your curry is pretty wide – the standard beef / pork / chicken / prawns are there….then you also have a hamburger, an omlette (!) or my personal (least) favourite:

I guess it’s a bit more exotic here than in the dirty south of England. So I went for something like beef stirfry in mine, medium spicy and with 200g of rice (the minimum). It looked good and was ok (the meat quality was average tbh):

Boston too pork thingy with hers, which was an interesting measuring stick for Ajisen Ramen (they serve this exact meal on their cheap meals menu for 25rmb ish).

It was pretty good actually, although the rice is a bit stickier and heavier than AR. Oytun, the meat monster, went for BEEEEF with BEEEEEF in his, and it looked like a good call (he is the king of Coco so he should have made the right choice):

Tasty and it swamped the rice which is always a good thing. Screw carbs, give me PROTEINZ. Overall, it would have been a good meal…nothing amazing, nothing rubbish….but then out of nowhere came….

The dream ticket. The king’s own dish. Chicken fillet in breadcrumbs with tartar sauce and lemon. On a hot summer’s day, you can not get anything better than a hot chicken piece with this tangy tartar (and a boiled egg)! Is it a taste of home? No, not really (the only tartar sauce I ever had at home was one which my mum had kept in the cupboard for 4 years, and had gone quite mouldy. Call me strange, but I had a natural aversion to the stuff since then). The price for this beauty? 15 rmb (£1!). Come in my mouth! (c-o-m-e).

Address:
CoCo Ichibanya
(COCO壱番屋)
A9 Hongqiao Parkson Shopping Center, 100 Zunyi Lu,
Changping
near Xianxia Lu, Metro Line 2 Loushanguan Lu Station

Live news

Quake death toll officially hits 40,075 – Not a good milestone to reach

Joey Barton is jailed for assault – Shame

America’s Hottest College Girl 2008 – It’s called a contest, but everyone seems to be a winner here.

US ‘stuck’ with Guantanamo prison – I hate it when that happens

Foreign Netizens: President Hu, Premier Wen deserve Nobel Peace Prize – Erm kind of…

Las Vegas Promoters Offer Suge 1 Mil To Fight – $1m to fight the guy that knocked him out in a Vegas nightclub.

A videogame that truly takes the p*ss – Pee to ski! This could be a nightclub hit!

The Pirate Bay Enters List of 100 Most Popular Webites – 96 places after djod.co.uk

BitTorrent tracker Mininova faces legal action – That’s not really news, is it?!

I saw the signs

I’m back from two weeks of partying / travelling / drinking / sleeping (not enough sleeping!) around China. Although hardly original, I have developed a fetish for taking pictures of funny signs that I see, and here are a few: