ysquaredm (SH adventure edition)

Went to an art opening with pops today. First exhibition collaboration between Shanghai Arts and Crafts Museum with Japan. Had a bunch of laquerware from Toyama. The mayor of Takaoka was present. 

One of the Weirdest Restaurants

Sunday night, because a friend brought us Korean BBQ, Michael decided to look online for the best Korean BBQ restaurant in SH. Turns out, one of the best is a restaurant owned by the North Korean government! All the employees are shipped directly from there.

So last night, we went, expecting it to be weird, and it fulfilled our expectations.

During our drink order, Michael wanted to have a North Korean beer. I asked our waitress. However, I accidentally said in Chinese the words for South Korean, and the waitress very adamantly replied that, “No, this is a North Korean restaurant.” So of course then I asked, “Well, is there a North Korean beer?” And what do you know, there isn’t! Buuuut, there is a South Korean beer on the menu. I don’t think the waitress realizes the irony of the situation or the drink menu.

The food, as with most Korean BBQ places, was pretty good. We tried talking to our waitress, but it was fairly awkward because I was doing the translating and because she was from up north. At one point, we asked her, “Which place is better? Shanghai or North Korean?” Unsurprisingly, yet totally unbelievably, she answered, “North Korean.” That may be because while they work in SH, they aren’t really allowed to live here. It’s fairly common knowledge that they are bused back and forth from the restaurant to the dormitories and that they are not allowed smart phones.

Our follow up questions was that should we go visit North Korean, and she answered, to Michael who is an American, that, “I don’t think he’s allowed.” Yaaaaa.

Behind our booth, there was a television just showing North Korean military men and women singing and playing instruments that I have no idea who they learned from. Seriously, who from North Korean knows how to play the harp! How did they even get one! And there were many a French horns, isn’t that against their “religion”?

Also, there was supposed to be traditional dancing and singing starting at 7:30pm, which is why I made our reservation at 5:30pm, to avoid that kind of crazy.

The Saturday Routine

For the past month or so Saturdays have been my favorite day of the week because of the awesome routine of brunch plus archery, both at the Soho Plaza, which in Chinese is the Fuxing Plaza (ha). The plaza has about twenty or thirty restaurants. So far Michael and I have tried a couples: Japanese, Korean fried chicken, tonkatsu, French café. Our goal is to try like 85% of the restaurants, since some are just juice places.

After a decent brunch, we go shooting! I’m getting a lot better! And have even moved to the 10 meter targets. There is also an 18 meter target, but the practice bows are not strong enough to hit those. Guess how far away the Olympic targets are? Not to mention being outdoors subjected to wind and what not. 70 meters! About 230 feet away. And the bullseye is only about the size of a DVD. I will never be that good. But I’ll live.

Bowling!

Went bowling yesterday with a bunch of friends. It was more fun than expected and the place was really nice and comfortable! My goal was to break triple digits and I did (I’m P2)! Even got a couple of strikes. And then I got progressively worse as my arm got more noodle-y. Definitely going again.

Peking Duck!

So Michael and I are perpetually trying to find the best Peking duck restaurant. The place we went to last night, Old Beijing near the Bund, is so far the best one we have found. The other two we tried, Da Dong and Moose, are good but a bit more fusion-y in their style. This restaurant is very old school: Chinese scholar style wooden chairs surround tables crammed together in a big space with inadequate AC and truly mediocre service.

However! The duck was delicious. The other two dishes, just meh. One was miscellaneous duck parts: gizzards, feet, and wing tips? Which, as Michael likes to put it, parts that Americans don’t eat. Which I counter by saying they are parts that Americans put into hot dogs. The other was duck blood and wonton soup. Yes, those red blobs are blood, which we call bloobs. Both were fairly tasteless, though the broth, which seemed to be chicken, but is probably duck since this is a duck restaurant, was delicious.

Also, they served the duck 4 ways! One is the Peking style with pancakes and condiments. One was stir fried duck slices with onions. It was too saucey and bland to be worth eating, let alone bring it home as take out. The weirdest are those little appetizers you see. It was a slice of duck, with kiwi sandwiched between it and a Pringle, on top of that pinky sweet sauce one sees in Chinese restaurants. The question here is who, after putting one of these “things” into their mouth, thought it tasted good and was worth serving as a recommended dish! Oy. At least the last way was pretty good. They deep fried the rest of the duck pieces in pepper and other spices.

O, forgot to mention the Beijing style noodles that were just terrible. It’s supposed to be a traditional meat sauce, but just tasted like soy sauce with unidentified chunks of things in it.

We brought home at least half of the duck. So now we get to enjoy it today also!

On Tuesday, I had dinner in a rail car. Not the dining car of a train, but the rail cars that used to belong to the Dowager Empress. The most fascinating part was the old photographs of the empress and that time period (the men in those photos still had their queues), and of early Shanghai. 

Waxberries!

Scientific name of Myrica rubra. Chinese name yangmei (杨梅). And a whole bunch of other names: Chinese strawberry, Japanese Bayberry, yamamomo (Japanese for mountain peach), yumberry, etc.

One of my favorite fruits! Especially since you can only get it in Asia. I already ate this entire bucket, plus more!

It’s a sweet and tart fruit. Has a pit in the center. Kind of like raspberry or blackberry, but instead of having just a couple dozen drupelets, there’s hundreds of skinnier ones, making the entire surface knobby.

From Chinese folklore, it’s good for indigestion and such. From scientific research, it’s got anthocyanins, antioxidants and other good stuffs.

All the more reasons to eat bucket full of these!