Quick lunch @ 78

Just like our beloved Ajisen Ramen, 78 is a cheap and fast noodle restaurant near Jing’an Temple (静安寺), on the same road as Burger King and The Coffee Bean. They serve quite a good range of stuff (soups, noodles, hotpots, meat skewery things) and all the main stuff was between 20 and 30 rmb.

Ever since going on a modified version of the Atkins’ Diet (modified with unhealthy stuff), I have developed an occasional longing for fried eggs (I used to eat perhaps six per day while ‘training’ (lol)). The sight of this little beggar almost made me fall off my slightly uncomfortable stool:

It is a hot pot, and I actually burned my thumb on the bowl to prove how hot it was. Bit stupid really. I’m not quite sure where the egg-white went, but there’s something about that yolk that made me want to take it behind the middle school lockers and get it pregnant (TM Tracy Jordan, 30 Rock).

My partner in crime had a soup thing:

With a pork chop chaser:

I really appreciate this idea of being able to order fried meat as a supplement to almost anything, as it does seem to plug the gaps that the soupwater doesn’t fill.

To share we had a slightly uninspiring kebab collection, including tomatoes wrapped in bacon (what sort of devil made up that crooked recipe) and a sausage on a stick. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sausage fan (HEY – NO) but it seemed out of place in the company of the super chicken pieces to its right. Whatever, I still ate it :P

Dorae-mad

So after a chance encounter one day back in 2003, I fell in love with a blue, robotic cat called Doraemon. He became very special to our family (Jamie, Daisy and myself) and we cared for him dearly.

A trip to Hong Kong and Thailand only served to reinforce my love for the little cat with the big pocket, as he is truly a superstar in Asia. I even bought a pair of jeans with his fat face on so I could carry him around with me (or behind me) wherever I went. China too is feeling the nip from the claws of Dorae-mania…but recently I’ve realised that I may have gone too far…

It started innocently enough. A trip to the supermarket, a slight sniffle…before I knew it we had three boxes of Doraemon tissues on our living room table. So soft…so nice…a bit weird…

On the next shop visit, I needed some snacks – and look who provided them! Delicious gummy sweets in three super flavours! It was starting to become a lifestyle choice, and I didn’t care!

Then the addiction began. Boxes and boxes of little cakes. So soft and delicious, with faux-creme and faux-jam inside…perfect any time of the day or night. They became my staple diet…

I started calling them by name (before I ate them). I liked to give them a little backstory too. Barry (the cake) WANTS to make me happy! He wants to be eaten! I just kept eating them…I lay in bed and downed five…ten…fifteen at a time. Then it hit me…I couldn’t move.

I tried to wiggle my toes but nothing worked…I lay for hours, whimpering in the sea of empty wrappers and crumbs. I had to get out of this Doraemon daze. I rolled myself onto the floor (the impact cushioned by the mountain of Doraemon tissues) and crawled towards the bathroom. I realised it had been days since I’d washed, brushed my teeth or….been to the toilet.

I made it…but as I reached for the toilet roll I realised that I could never, ever escape:

I’d gone Dorae-mad.

Lunch @ Ya Wang (Duck King)

It’s been a while since I had a good duck (or any duck for that matter), so where better to go to than the DUCK KING!? Nowhere, that’s where. After only having slept for 6 hours (updating the DJOD.co.uk archives IF YOU HAVE TO KNOW) I wasn’t feeling particularly swell (oh gawd USA influence has begun), but by the time I’d walked to Plaza 66 (near Jingan Temple) my belly was begining to rumble. In a good way.

The place has some real authentic decoration (I heard it’s Beijing style, just how I like it). It was pretty empty (which sounds like the norm for lunchtimes) but it can get pretty packed later on (I am told). I was pretty glad of the calm (not to mention the usual stares from gobsmacked midgets Chinese) as I stretched out and opened the menu…

Ok, I admit it. I didn’t have the balls to order the scorpions. Next time (maybe).

Having assessed the fact that we were actually in the presence of a duck king, we figured that we should go ALL OUT…so our first dish was duck. I would like to be more specific but I’ve forgotten precisely what part of the bird it came from, but I’m almost sure it is inside (we had asked for the bill and feet to be left firmly in the kitchen). It felt like noodles (in my mouth, duh) and tasted a bit like chicken…a good combo!

The only non-ducky dish was asparagus with chili, since it really does taste good and it’s exceptionally good for you (as the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board will tell you).

Next up – Pan fried duck livers! I wasn’t expecting there to be so many (or for them to be so big), which kinda made me think we’d misordered. They tasted pretty good, if a little bland…but everything probably tastes bland when it’s on a bed of prawn crackers and cucumber! CUCUMBER FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GTFO MY TABLE!

The main event: Peking Beijing duck. So…the first difference from the ducks at Special Zone 1997 was that it was huge. The second difference, it was hot (like warm hot not spicy hot) and the third difference…nobody ripped the hell out of it in front of us at the table! NO RIPPING!? Half of the fun of the dish is watching someone tear it to shreds like a five year old with a box of Kleenex (hey, I said five year old you sicko). After I’d got over this initial disappointment, I gave it a try and (as expected) it was damnnnnn fine.

After spending time assembling my duck pancake (aka Fajita-Dentona) I started gobbling them a bit too fast and needed to take a break…the pancakes here are a lot more flour-y and thinner than I’ve had previously, but that just made me enjoy the tender meat even more. DUCKING TASTY WTF!

Just after my third pancake, bowls started popping up on the table with what looked to be dirty washing up water. I was informed that the rest of the duck (we’d already hoovered two plates) had been made into soup! Someone really needs to teach the Chinese about course-order. I don’t think they went to finishing school. Anyway, I was stuffed so didn’t venture into the boney-murky-underworld-water that confronted me…

We asked for the few scraps that we didn’t eat to be packaged for takeaway, and I’m glad we did! Check out the snazzy bag they gave us! I know where I’m coming around Christmas time…no more wrapping headaches for me!

Overall, whole (king) duck, three dishes, four cokes and a (complimentary) plate of oranges came to around 230RMB (about £18) (and could easily have served three but I told the other guy to go duck himself). Ducklicious! I’ve gone too far…

Bi Feng Tang, Shanghai

Bi Feng Tang is a popular chain in Shanghai, serving solid quality and good value Cantonese food. The décor is meant to resemble a fishing village, but since I’ve never been to a fishing village in China or anywhere else, I can’t really comment on its authenticity. We were sitting under big umbrellas outside on the street, surrounded by bamboo huts. Five minutes after we arrived it began raining, so it had more to do with the British seaside than the Chinese coast…anyway…

We had a really great set of guides to help us order, however they thought it would be much more useful for our Chinese education (AND FUNNY HAHAHAAHGAAHAA) to only tell us the names of the food in Cantonese and Mandarin. Thanks guys! That being said, we could guess most of the things (Is it pink? It’s pork. Is it brown? It’s beef. Does it taste like crap? It’s a cherry tomato).

We (ok they) ordered about nine dishes in total…with varying results. Check out this British favourite:

If the word ‘bland’ could be made into a single dish, it would be this – like a mince pie without the mince.

Hmmm…dumplings in soup with a piece of soggy lettuce covering it. I don’t know who came up with this little combo, but it tasted really good (although WTF difficult to grab with my non-epic chopstick skills).

Duck…always an MVP on the chinese table…tasted amazing but the little bits of bone in some parts always scare me a bit. I think Jme pointed out how cheap chicken breast is in Taiwan compared to the thigh/leg/other parts with bones in. Maybe they like to play with their food before eating (a big no-no in my eyes).

Soo…the #2 prize on the table went to this little number. Really tasty pork meat, no bones and HOT! An (almost) winning combo. Also note the bread rolls (12 o’clock in this pic)…billed as an amazing delicacy they tasted like…bread. With sugar on. Meh. Also at 11 o’clock you can see this big plate of cold fishy things. I think we ordered that as part of the maritime theme…because nobody seemed to want to put it in their mouth.

As Ric Flair said, “To be the man, you’ve gotta beat the man” and nothing at the table was taking beef’s crown. Served steaming hot in a delicious tangy sauce…even the presence of a few bone bits couldn’t take away from this super food. I’m drooling just writing this.

Total price including beers, rice and some other dumpling things, around 80rmb (£6) per person. I’m going to get really fat here.

Hooters, Shanghai

So…true story…we’re looking for an authentic Chinese restaurant to try near Zun Yi Nan Lu when my eyes get distracted…

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Well, in honour of my dad (who is a HUGE birdwatching fan), I thought that going to an owl-themed restaurant would be a great way to spend the day!

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I was getting quite excited as we went in, because clearly birdwatching in China has no social stigma attached to it (as is the case in the UK). The bar was bright, clean and very cheerful.

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There really wasn’t a single anorak in sight…I was starting to wonder if we’d walked into the wrong restaurant! There seemed to be the odor of ‘lady’ in the air, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on its source. I motioned to one of the twitchers to come over…

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And then I realised that we may have come to the wrong place…it was in fact an American Diner masquerading as a bird-watching den…but since we’d already ordered, we figured we’d stick it out…

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This is Annie, our waitress. I know her name because she wrote it down on a napkin as we sat down. Since I’m rarely on first name terms with serving staff, we asked her a few questions about how much fun it was to work in Hooters, where she was from, what time she finished…but before she could answer…

…all of the staff grabbed chairs, pulled them into the aisle of the bar and stood up straight…then danced in sync to some trashy pop song (hey I didn’t say I didn’t like it) called ‘L-O-V-E’ for about 5 minutes. I (foolishly) thought it would be a little bit ‘Bangkok pool hall’ to film this…looking back, I messed up.

There seemed to be a hierachy to staff, with each level being granted a different outfit. All black is the hottest…followed by the trainees (pretty hot, but sometimes with a flaw (like a moustache or a limp)) wearing white tops with orange shorts…and the kitchen staff wore black tshirts with black trousers. This may seem like peripheral info, until you see….

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…a brown hoody?! Everyone’s wearing the skimpiest of skimp and you’re wearing a brown hoody? Either this girl was the BOSS of the BOSS or someone didn’t want her flaunting her assets near our food. Either way, sadly, I don’t see a future in this business for her.

But these two…

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…have a long career ahead, and luckily:

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I have the autograph!

Orden Bowling + Anadolu Restaurant

Before arriving in China, I read that bowling was MASSIVE here. Huge. Everyone does it. I’d seen numbers thrown around about 15,000 lanes across Shanghai…well they must be pretty well hidden.

After a little research, we found a couple of places which match our needs: Cheap drinks, nice lanes, pool tables and those machines that you can grab toys out of (ok that last one is all me). Step forward: Orden Bowling Centre. Their logo is a panther with a bowling ball for a hand…I mean…does it get better than that?

Outside the building is a 20ft bowling pin, right on the street. While we were admiring this feat of modern technology, a man inquired as to whether we’d like the company of some ladyboys…maybe we were looking at this phallus a little too intently. I was up for it, but Oyt insisted that we need to perfect our bowling game so in we went…

The games were 25rmb each (£1.80 – it was peak time) and a beer was 15rmb (served in a delightful can, no glass). They seemed to have a nice mix of ghetto and class, as the lanes themselves were really nice, clean and bright. Our big problem was that we hadn’t eaten since lunch (and it was around 9pm now)…so we decided to check out the menu….

Oops.

I made a promise to myself three years ago, after visiting a shady-ass restaurant in Hong Kong with Jme, J and Daisy, that I would never EVER under ANY circumstances order ‘blind’ from a menu which is in a different language. Well I fell off the wagon, and it was a long way to the floor:

To describe this stuff is impossible…just try to imagine pearl barley, cold water and brine. Badly mixed. In our defence, these ‘products’ were labelled with ’240g’ next to them…so I was sure they were going to be meat of some description (we really were that hungry). I managed about four spoons of each before just ordering another beer and carefully slipping the bowls into the bin while the assistants weren’t looking.

So, with our food mission still incomplete, we decided to strategize over a few games of pool. They had about 8 big American pool tables for 40rmb/hr…although after the first game we thought we’d pissed someone off as one of the assistants rushed over as soon as the black ball was pocketed. Thankfully, it was just because she wanted to rack the balls for us (it’s all part of the service!).

Ok so after 7 games we were almost dying of hunger…and where else do you go after a night out that the kebab house? Ok this wasn’t Adam’s kebab van…it was Anadolu Restaurant – the premier Turkish restaurant on that street in Shanghai.

The pricing structure was pretty strange…it seemed like if you took a plate it was between 80-100rmb, but shawarma style kebabs (Turkish expert says: durum) were 25rmb. I was pretty worried that one durum wouldn’t be enough for me, so I got one chicken and one beef, while the Turkish expert ordered the exotic sounding Iskender.

As many people are aware, I have a weird eating disorder which makes me eat really quickly for about 4 minutes, then I’m full. Well I just didn’t get full. I basically downed these things like it was 5pm in the middle of Ramadan…then I hit the wall. So full. SOOO FULLLL. It hurt…but it hurt nice. For the first time I understood what masochists might get out of S+M. Nice pain. Anyway….

While the meat-sweats were setting in, we paid and gtfo. The taxi ride was like a happy dream, and I had the best night’s sleep since arriving in Shanghai. Anadolu passed the ultimate kebab restaurant test: I might even consider going there sober (one day).

Reeb Min Bi

China’s currency is the RMB or Ren Min Bi. You can get around 14RMB for every £1 you exchange…and as any travel guide will tell you, it’s very important to always remember the relative value of something that you’re buying on your trip…and with this in mind I’ve been doing a lot of calculations in my head (errrr what’s 360 divided by 14 again?!)

But no longer. No longer am I a slave to the international currency markets – I don’t need to be, because I have a new currency which has quickly become the ‘go-to’ relative price index for China. Ladies and Gentlemen, behold:

The Reeb Min Bi.

As you may remember, the local Shanghai beer is called ‘Reeb’, and tastes GREAT! It’s also around 16p per 660ml bottle…so three of those bad boys and I’m anyone’s for the night. Since finding this national treasure, I’ve found it difficult to enjoy spending money on say…a drink in a bar, without constantly calculating how many Reebs I could be buying for the same money. Another example:

Papa John’s. On the day I got my temporary residence permit, we decided to celebrate with a little taste of home…and what says home better than the ‘Land and Sea’ pizza from Papa John’s, which includes: Ham, prawns, pineapple, mushrooms and peas. Ok it’s a bit of a weird mix but believe me, it hit the spot. Overall, the meal came to around 190rmb or 86 . EIGHTY-SIX REEB MIN BI?! Even if a pizza was made of Kate Moss before the crack it still wouldn’t be worth eighty-six bottles of delicious beer!

That’s what the Reeb Min Bi gives you: context. Now I’ve stopped thinking ‘that bowl of curried pork with rice is so cheap at 25rmb’ and realised that at 11 , it better be a tasty god damn cut of meat to be worth it.

I welcome you to use the Reeb Min Bi in your daily lives, and see how it changes your perspective on shopping and the world in general. Wo ai ni, .