August 2010
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Possibly better than PB&J...
French Toast Hong Kong-style: two thick slices of deep fried french toast, sandwiching a thick later of crunchy peanut butter with a hot mess of butter on top. Heaven on Earth.
Tsui Wah Restaurant. Wellington Street, across from Yong Kee Restaurant, Central, Hong Kong.
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BAAAAAACK!
So I lied about the vacation for a week thing, but it’s been a looooong time since I’ve updated this blog! I’m actually in the process of moving to the States, but there is no lack of food pictures from the past few weeks.
Let’s start with some good ol’ Korean cuisine from the ECNU campus (the East China Normal University in Zhongshan Park). After working for a...
July 2010
6 posts
my blog is currently on vacation for one more week.
Crystal Jade
I used to hate Chinese food. Now, there’s this one restaurant that I can never ever ever get tired of: Crystal Jade. No, not just any Crystal Jade, but the one in Xintiandi.
The following pictures show you how I roooolllll:
Mini deep fried tofu - delightfully crunchy on the outside, scalding hot on the inside. There’s a bit of spicy kick in there!
My friend Heather and I...
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Rainy Days in Shanghai
This weekend my fabulous manager Shin from work invited us over to her house for some amazing homemade fare. She’s lived in Spain for a bit, and brought some of those influences into her food. Talk about YUMMMM… and what an amazing way to stay in from the monsoon outside:
Creamy, delicious stewed chorizo with tomatoes and peppers on French bread.
Homemade wraps with chicken,...
June 2010
17 posts
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Dim Sum Extravanganza
Can you expect anything else from a trip to Hong Kong?
Last week, I went to visit my parents in Hong Kong. They spoiled me rotten and took me to all the places that I love to eat. Naturally, we had dim sum 3 days out of the 4 that I was there. One of my favorite places is one of the only remaining restaurants on the HK side serving pushcart dim sum everyday - the 3rd Floor Chinese restaurant at...
Things I miss about the States (not necessarily in...
Costco
Hummus (in every supermarket)
Not logging onto a VPN to get onto Facebook/Youtube/Picasa/Hulu
Trader Joe’s
Good Buffalo Wings (preferably from Candlelight)
Trashy reality shows
Grass
Blue skies
Fresh air
Watching movies in movie theatres
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Back on the Mainland
After a four day escape to Hong Kong (food pictures to come shortly), I gingerly set foot back on Shanghai soil when I stepped out from the automated doors at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport. What followed reminded me again, Oh yeah… I’m on Mainland China…
I get in a smoke-filled taxi. WAH! Three half-inch bugs are scurrying around the floor of the backseat, probably half scared...
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This is for all you Pudong haters out there
(For those of you not from Shanghai, Puxi - literally, west of the river - is where most of Shanghai’s shops, restaurants, bars, people, etc, are. Pudong is east of the river)
A few days ago, I was rejoicing at the opening of City Super in the basement of the IFC building in Lujiazui (which is directly connected to the Line 2 Lujiazui stop).
city‘super is a “Mega Lifestyle...
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A Lesson in Manners
Lately, there have been teams of two young university students, decked out in bright vests and hats, stationed at the mouth of each escalator in the subway station during peak hours. They hold signs and chant, “Stand on the right, pass on the left!”
So it goes. There have been so many changes in the city since the coming of the World Expo. DVD shops have been shut down en masse...
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KABB: All-American Grub
Real dark toast. Flavorful potato hash. Awesome environment and outdoor seating!!! Expect to spend around 50-100 RMB each…
Kabb, Xintiandi. Close to the Line 1 Huangpi Nan Lu Station or Line 10 Xintiandi Station.
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Jackfruit Chips
LOVE these. I had to Google Image these bad boys because I’m always done with them by the time I reach for the camera.
Anyway, I know I said I’d start “eating healthy” and therefore stop writing about junk food, but since I devoured a whole bag of these last night, I thought they would warrant a blog post. Jackfruit chips are a...
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A taste of Xi'an
Because of the Shanghai World Expo that is being held in the city until the end of October, the city has taken many recent measures to “clean the city up,” including shutting down many of the DVD shops, outlawing the wearing of pajamas in public (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17gao.html), and prohibiting street food vendors that usually sell the tastiest noodles, baked...
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Thai House
Hidden within a little alleyway next to a C-Store in Xujiahui is my favorite Thai restaurant in all of Shanghai. Thai House!
With prices slightly more reasonable than Coconut Paradise in Jing’an, Thai House offers big plates of authentic Thai food within a casual, cozy setting. When you walk in the front entrance, you’ll be greeted with the Chinese-speaking parrot (“Ni...
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Better English
Everyday in the Business section of the China Daily, I try and skim over the small section that teaches “Better Chinese.” Today, I was extra bored and took a look at the “Better English” section.
Okay, so these are the exact definitions from the March 19th, March 13th, and March 10th “Urban Word of the Day” on www.urbandictionary.com, respectively. Very...
May 2010
35 posts
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The Jing'an Book Club
The other day, I was getting lost while walking around as usual, and stumbled upon this new-looking facade on Weihai Road. To be honest, the building caught my attention because it looked like my grandma’s nursing home. Peeking in through the windows, I saw shelves upon shelves of neatly-stacked books, and table after table of sparkling clean tables and comfortably cushy couches.
What...
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How to make a mess in the kitchen: Sweet Potato...
Make anything with flour.
I’m taking a break from watching the new season of The Bachelorette (which might I add is the best reality show on TV; other than that, no comment) to put up some pictures of the ugliest sweet potato gnocchi (potato dumplings) possibly made in recent history, though to a bumbling idiot in the kitchen like me, they tasted pretty damn good.
What I used:
4...
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A story worth writing about in the Shanghai Daily. Really?
Kids ape risky stunt seen on TV
by Xu Chi (May 26, 2010)
A GASP-inducing human castle performance staged by a Spanish artist group inspired a group of kids to try it themselves. Fortunately, cops stopped the dangerous attempt in time. Wusong frontier inspection police stopped six children under the age of 9 from forming a three-tier...
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Thames Town: A Shanghai Ghost Town
About a 20 RMB cab ride away from Line 9’s Songjiang University Town Metro Station (this is the part of town where the subway travels above ground, I know, crazy), is Thames Town, a development built in 2006 to bring the concept of “ideal living” come to life. This 1-square kilometer town was created to mirror a typical English town.
I want to interrupt and say WE HAD...
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The Baking Adventures of Hannah and Justine
This is the pictoral account of our two-day baking extravaganza. Happy Birthday Will! I hope you enjoyed the cake(s). It took me a lot of willpower not to devour it all before the big dinner.
First, we made a Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake - oh I’m sorry, a two-layer Peanut Butter Cake with Chocolate-Peanut Butter Icing (recipe here:...
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Sunday Brunch: La Creperie
I started posting “Junk Food of the Week” entries a while back, but then I stopped. I’m supposed to be “eating healthy.”
This afternoon I made my way over to La Creperie in the French Concession, with a couple of brave souls that woke up in time for Sunday Brunch. My foodie boss always raves about this place, so I decided that it was high time to finally try it out!...
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A rainy day post...
This morning, I woke up with the full intention of packing my bag and taking my second try at gaelic football (www.shanghaifootballclub.com). Well, I took one half-eyed look out the window and it looks like I’ll be staying in instead.
I have one favorite neighborhood in Shanghai where, once I’m inside, it doesn’t feel like I’m in China at all. It is a little place off of...
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Double Take
And then…
Their clothes (and prices) are similar, too!
InPoint Plaza, Wujiang Road #115-116, outside of Nanjing Xi Lu Metro Line 2 Station
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Finally.
I think I’ve found it. That little haven within a big city where you can sit back and take it all in, without feeling the hustle and bustle constantly ringing around you. Where you can close your eyes and imagine that you’re sitting in a country kitchen at home…. blah blah blah… actually, I’m just trying to be dramatic. That haven in Shanghai actually exists for me at...
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"A yelp for help"
In Tuesday’s China Daily…
Shanghai’s designer dogs are increasingly coping with the stress of city living by turning to traditional Chinese medicine… With a shortage of public places for them to let off steam, acupuncture is emerging as a private-sector way of getting miffed mutts to calm down. Asuka says she began experimenting with her pet’s pressure points to stop...
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Ode to the man in the subway
Oh thank you, tall man in the subway with the purple striped shirt and gray suit, for not giving me a dirty look - heck, for not looking at me at all - when my huge bag (and I) was so helplessly pushed into your gut like a piece of clay forcefully kneaded into a mold, during rush hour this morning on the Line 2 subway, even after I resisted boarding the first train that came by because it was...
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Sunday morning, 6:35am in Hongqiao Park
Hear no evil
This group was a little more hardcore. They had white silk uniforms.
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Baked Oatmeal with Apples
Lately, I spend maybe 57% of my time online looking at food. Not necessarily reading recipes, mind you, but dreaming about what I could be making if only I could get the right ingredients, without paying a small fortune.
Enough of that, I’m starting to modify all the recipes that I see so that they can be fit for a poorly-stocked kitchen (on a side note, thank goodness I have an oven, which...
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A subway adventure
When I studied abroad in Shanghai in the Fall of 2007, there were 4 subway lines. Now, there are 12. That’s really impressive when you compare it to the construction of the 2nd Ave subway in New York.
(Courtesy of www.exploreshanghai.com, which has possibly the best Shanghai metro map, guide, iPhone/iPod app)
The subway system in Shanghai is, although easily overcrowded at...
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皮蛋[瘦肉]粥: Congee with Pork and Preserved Egg
My latest attempt at cooking: congee. This rice porridge is commonly eaten for breakfast with fried dough and scallions, but I like eating this stuff at all times of the day. One typical Cantonese-style congee is cooked with lean pieces of pork and preserved egg (aka. thousand-year egg, usually made with duck eggs), but I am perfectly content with having just the preserved egg:
...
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Xiaolongbao...SHOWDOWN! Top Dumpling (項鮮湯包)
This time’s challenger… Top Dumpling (項鮮湯包) versus the existing champion of the best xiaolongbao (in the Justine world), Jia Jia Tang Bao (佳家湯包).
We showed up to this little restaurant, situated next to City Shop in the basement of a shopping plaza on Tianyaoqiao Lu in Xujiahui, with our sleeves rolled up and ready to get down and dirty, to eat.
The intimidation...