We will find, and drink, boba tea!

Unbeknownst to us, we had been set on a quest. A quest to secure and imbibe boba tea, knowing not the words for tapioca pearl. While we ultimately completed this quest, we certainly had our travails along the way.

The first attempt in Shanghai was a complete disaster. We went to a place that clearly, clearly sold milk tea with tapioca pearls. We ordered two drinks. It took a lot of pointing and hand gestures to get to "tea," which did not bode well for us. The drinks were mixed, they came...and they had tea and ice, with nary a solid in the glass.

The second attempt, also in Shanghai, took several baby steps towards success. Showing our capability to learn, we knew we were going to have to watch the production to steer it towards boba, as we could not find the words for it. So Max, demonstrating his courage by going first, mimicked little round balls and pointed to the containers he believed contained our desired pearls. His drink came and it had solids! But it was lowly grass jelly, with nowhere near the absolutely delicious texture and bite of true pearls. I, trying to build on our momentum, motioned that I wanted solids as well and added to it my improvisation of picking up one of the large straws (created for the sole purpose of drinking boba tea) and motioned that I wanted the pearls that would use this straw. My drink came and the nice cashier handed it to me, with a large straw (logically, taking my motions literally). No pearls though.

The third attempt, in the small canal town of Zhouzhuang, proved our closest miss. We poked our heads in a cake and tea shop. We excitedly noticed the vacuum sealer that was used to attach the tight plastic caps to the tea drinks, punctured with the straws. I went on a recon mission, pretending to look at the little pastries but whirling around where I could see behind the tea counter. There! In a bucket! Tapioca pearls! Yes! Surely, surely, we would secure them now. We ordered from the cashier, who asked for our pick of flavored powders. I was so giddy with joy that I picked some obnoxious blue powder, and I didn't care. Then, as she made the drink, she didn't put any boba in. I walked around the corner and pointed to the bucket, saying my best version of "please, those" in Mandarin. she said something back to me which I could not begin to understand. She understood this, and finally said "no!" very firmly and confidently, and finished our drinks. What happened? I do not know to this day.

The fourth, and victorious, attempt occurred in the small town (ha!) of Beijing. Max, his antenna keen as ever, recognized our blood sugar levels dropping and said "follow me." We left the Temple of Heaven, and he began to steer. We crossed the street. We looped behind a big building. We held close to a big market. We walked down an (apparently to me) empty street. Finally, the joint miraculously appeared, a tapioca pearl place! With pictures! And a cashier who seemed amenable! Max made his order, using a combo of hand signals and pointing to the menu. He double confirmed the pearls. And, lo and behold, they came! Joy of joys! It was beyond refreshing. Immediately after finishing our drinks, we craved another.

Note: It is completely possible that there were several attempts between three and four that the author does not wish to recount.

Last meal in Shanghai stays local

For our final meal in Shanghai before the night train to Beijing, we had very little choice. We had not yet had a true Shanghainese meal yet! V came to the rescue with a place famous for it, nestled into a hotel near the Jing'an Temple.

The first dish was a sugar-soaked sponge tofu dish. It was a nice start. The texture was fun to eat, softly responding to each bite. The sugar, too, wasn't cloying, as they had gotten the amount right.

Next was a dish with a great name, vegetarian goose. No goose whatsoever, it is actually tofu and mushrooms. the tofu is made into sheets, dried, and wrapped around warm cooked shiitake mushrooms. A good presentation of this tasty if simple dish.

Third brought an interesting cold dish of pig tripe and mushrooms in chilli oil. The blend and balance here was fantastic! The tripe was crunchy with no off tastes or smells. The mushrooms were a delicious small variety with bright brown caps. And the oil seasoning was done with a light hand, which let the flavor and the spice build over the course of sampling this dish.

Then the main arrived, red-braised pork, often called Chairman Mao's pork as he was quite fond of this dish. It was accented by a handful of tea smoked eggs. The pork was rich and luxurious, bathing in its syrupy sauce of Shaoxing wine, vinegar, and soy. Each piece of pork was no less than 50% fat, as it was all enormous chunks of pork belly. Quite filling, defiantly unhealthy, yet we couldn't help but eat this one all the way to the end.

As vegetarian yin to the pork's yang, we got some pea shoots (with a little bit of pork). Ah, how I love pea shoots. So tender yet so full of green flavor! This dish was no exception. The pork, while note needed, perhaps added a little more savoriness to the plate.

It being Shanghai, this being our last night, we were not leaving without more xiao long bao. These were definitely a solid version. Not the most heavenly bite of dumpling I've had, but a heckuva lot better than the dumplings near Yuyuan Gardens. A great cap to a very delicious meal.

The planning that makes the city tick

Shanghai used to be much smaller, not even one of that region of China's major cities. Now, it is clearly a major metropolis. I went to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall to learn more about this past and also about where Shanghai will go.

The highlight of the hall was a room-filling scale model of Shanghai today. Many, many buildings in miniature were represented. Moreover, to show just how futuristic Shanghai is, they would dim the lights and rotating areas of the city would light up in turn.

Pretty cool!

I was a little bummed I wasn't (enough of) a VIP to get to go on the suspended walkway dangling above the model for a true bird's eye view.

The plans for the future were intriguing. Signs of a "socialistic new village"? I wanted to learn more. From what I could make out (English captions were limited), there were tremendous plans underfoot to turn many of the outlying areas surrounding Shanghai into mini cities and super towns (something like 9 new cities, 60 new super towns, and 600 socialistic new villages). These would have quite the central planner hand and would be built to provide all of the residents' need within reach. The TV screens were already playing some advertisements - or perhaps propaganda - about how excellent these new places would be.

Beyond that, there were exhibits about the restoration of the riverway, the expansion plans for the airport, train station, and deep water port, and assorted other plans for the growth of a city so large. I appreciated the inclusion of making the food of the city part of its allure.

Getting dumplings right

It was our fourth day in Shanghai, and we had yet to have absolutely delicious dumplings. Time to change that. We went to Little Yang's Fried Dumplings to get our fix.

These large fried soup dumplings were excellent. Take your typical xiao long bao, make it twice the size, sear the bottom until it becomes crispy, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Yum. We went through a couple of orders of these, and then straight back to order some more. Eating them was a skill that was fun to practice. First, you try to pick them up with your chopsticks without rupturing the skin. Then, you place it on your spoon and take a small nibble of the corner. Then, you try to slurp the soup out, but not too quickly, or else you completely burn the inside of your mouth. Only then can you take a big bite into the heart of these delicious dumplings.

As accompaniment, I got tofu and yong tiao soup with vermicelli. The mix of the rolled tofu and the chopped fried dough was very nice. With chillies added this was an excellent counterpoint to the dumplings (though probably not a standalone standout).

Just as we were leaving, they brought out a fresh batch on a huge iron plate. A line quickly formed, to go orders were placed, and, like that, they were gone!

Fish head curry, the way Hunan does it

Note: Due to blogger mishap, photos of this fine meal have gone missing. Close your eyes while you read this post and imagine the dishes!

V continued the onslaught of delicious food in Shanghai. This time the place was Gu Yi, a Hunanese restaurant.

The clear and standout highlight of the meal was the chopped chilli covered fish head. An enormous fish head, of a red snapper perhaps, had been steamed and then covered with an inch thick layer of chopped green chillies, then braised. It was amazingly delicious, quite spicy, and we picked apart the poor fish head to pieces. Anything edible was eaten. The neck flesh, the cheek flesh, even the lip flesh. Most fun of all, and new to me, was the fish eye. I got one of them, popped it in my mouth, and bit down. Pop! It was like a giant piece of salmon roe, though less intense. Both odd and scrumptious at the same time. Just remember to spit out the retina (I think it was the retina...).

Also good were the cumin-scented pork ribs. Though having a reputed off night, they were tasty and easy to eat. The flesh jumped off the bone. I would love to have these when they're one.

Less successful were the dishes Max and I (mainly me) picked. One was squid and bamboo shoot stir fry. The dish was very monocolor and very underflavored. Nothing tasted particularly good. The second dish was bitter melon braised in sauce. I was hoping the sauce (which contained ingredients lost to history) would mitigate the bitterness of the melon. Not the case. We tried to like it, but we couldn't.

I dearly wish I had a photo of the chopped chilli fish head. What an amazing dish, definitely up there on the list for the trip so far.

Eating wings with Korean teenagers

After a long night of poker (bed happened around dawn), I needed some good comfort food the next day for a late breakfast (actually, more like a late lunch!) V had just the ticket: Kyochon Chicken, a Korea-based chain that is all over Korea with outposts in Shanghai (one), LA (four in Koreatown) and NYC (three in Koreatown). Their specialty is, clearly, fried chicken wings.

The first batch to reach us was original recipe fried chicken wings. These were great to start, with nice batter and good flesh. The chickens they use are very small, so the meat retains a lot of flavor (though there is more work required to free it from the wing). And, their frying process includes two rounds of frying and takes 25 minutes from end to end.

The second batch was spicy fried chicken wings. And, as is becoming apparent throughout China, when they say spicy they mean it. One of these and my lips started to go numb. I had to both eat an original wing and drink some beer to get the pain to subside. But it was worth it and I kept going back - these were much better than the original.

The third batch, which came after the first two were complete, was the honey and rice fried chicken wings. These were much sweeter and came with a lighter batter that appeared to have rice krispies in it. They were delectable and further numbed the pain from the spicy wings.

We ended up not being sated and so ordered another round of original and spicy to take our meal to the end.

Once done, the wing bones would find their way into silver buckets on the table. These buckets kept filling up and getting refreshed with new ones. Eventually, the four of us at the table polished off 130 wings. Which, in hindsight, sounds a little disgusting and perhaps a bit indulgent. But they were just so good and we were so hungry!

A final postscript to this meal was the ambiance. Wing joints in the States tend to be divey and to focus on sports. This chain has a target audience of teenage Korean girls, and it seems to be hitting its mark. Besides our table, that's all there was! They were enticed by the Korean boy band pictures, the well-lit chain environment, and also by the delicious chicken.

A taste of inner China

Another night, another fun dinner in Shanghai. Continuing our virtual tour of China's regions, we had Uighur food from western China. I did not catch the name of the restaurant, but those of you who intrepidly read Chinese will make it out from the photo below.

This place was really hopping, and as I walked to the table there were many dishes I was seeing that looked so good.

The sides that came first included a baked sesame bread and yogurt with pistachios. I am a sucker for pistachios, will eat them all the time, so I lapped the yogurt right up. It was delightfully not sweet. The sesame bread was best dipped in other dishes; standalone, it got a bit hard and flavorless.

Next up was a plate of thousand year old eggs. These eggs have been aged for several months (I know, false advertising), with the yolk turning a dark green and the whites turning a transparent black. These were tasty! Lighter than normal hard-boiled eggs, with a good chilli kick, they helped to cleanse the palate in between other dishes.

Third was the standout of the meal, for me: a mixture of lamb and croutons, cut to be similar shapes and size. The lamb was good, meaty, flavorful and not too dry. The croutons were unbelievable. It was af it each one had been hand soaked in lamb fat and then baked to regain its crunchiness (which may have been the preparation, come to think of it). Absolutely delicious.

There was also a plate of slightly pickled cucumber. This was refreshing and delightful, a great contrast to the heavier meats of lamb and mutton that decorated the table. And, the cucumber were cut on the bias, always a good sign.

Getting back to the meat, a full plate of mutton skewers begged to be eaten. Fantastic, well-seasoned, and so fun to eat off of the sharp skewer.

As we were walking to our table, someone spotted this dish on another table and we knew we had to try it. With a chicken stir fry and steamed buns adorning the plate, we were hopeful we were in for a treat. However, the dish fell short of the mark. The buns were overcooked and so very dry, with no extra juice coming from the meat mixture to compensate. Also, flavor took a back seat on this dish, which seemed all about theatrics.

The final dish was a DIY mini-fajitas with minced meat. Just ok, as the dish was bland and the tortilla-like wrappers not superb.

In sum, a couple of hits and some misses, but a good adventure to the cuisine of west China.

E to the X to the PO

Maybe you've heard: Shanghai is having a World Expo this year, from May through October. It is omnipresent in this town. It is everywhere. The Expo's mascot, Haibao, a short, blue, Gumby-like creature, is on every street corner and in many other locales. The Expo itself claimed a large section of riverfront property, largely on the Pudong side but also on the Puxi side as well. It is an exhibition of the countries of the world, and many, often with the Chinese government's help, have built large and temporary pavilions in the Expo space.

China Eastern Airlines was kind enough to give me a free ticket with my flight to Shanghai, so Max and I decided to head over and check it out. Well, tried to. Our path to the Expo was unfortunately rather circuitous. We had just moved to the Pudong side, to a Motel 168 that had amped up the fun factor, inserting fruit in plastic underneath the lobby floor.

From there, we thought it would be a quick subway ride to the Expo. We headed down into the Expo and were approached by a friendly seeming Expo volunteer, who spoke some English. She told us to take the bus, available "right upstairs." Ok! We headed upstairs and...no bus, nor a sign of a bus stop. We asked the official Expo booth and they pointed across the street and down about 200m to a normal bus stop. Max and I crossed the street and headed down. We waited at the bus stop for about 15 minutes, all the while trying to deduce which buses would head there. We made up elaborate stories about numbering schemes and snowflakes and took our best guess. We hopped on, I told the conductor where we were headed, and she laughed in my face. No effort to get us to pay nor any help for these non-Mandarin speaking travelers. After a couple of stops, and especially when the bus went straight instead of turning, we hopped off. A free ride to the middle of nowhere!

However, we thought we were close, so we decided to hoof it. Bad idea. The maps we'd been using, especially Lonely Planet, do an awful job at translating scale into an understandable distance. So, more than hour later, we arrived at an Expo gate. Except tickets weren't sold at this gate (we needed one more) and so we went down to the next gate, a mere kilometer away. Finally, we were there.

The empty ticket gates seemed promising - maybe it wouldn't be so crowded inside! Nope. Plenty of people inside, they had all just arrived hours earlier. In the 90 degree sunshine, many had smartly brought umbrellas to serve as parasols while they were in queue for the pavilions.

Max and I began to stroll around, and ended up in the Middle East and Central Asia section.

There was definitely Turkmenistan and Qatar, and perhaps the UAE as well. The pavilions were richly, sometimes whimsically, designed creations. The best rationale I've heard for the Expo is that many folks, especially domestic Chinese tourists, won't make it to many of these countries and so this is the way to bring it to them. Taking this to heart, Max and I headed to two-thirds of the axis of evil.

The North Korean pavilion was the saddest of the lot. I lone mock stone monument surrounded by fake blue plastic water was the main attraction inside. It didn't even seem to make a whole-hearted attempt to propagandize.

The Iranian pavilion was better done. Replete with Persian architecture, the building itself was a sight to behold. Inside, a large overhead skylight rained down light on the two stories. Upstairs, a full on rug market, with actual buying and selling of actual rugs taking place. Downstairs, live musical performances were taking place. There was also a neat sign that spoke of the eight ways in which the building represented what Iran was all about.

As our final learning experience, we headed to the Kazakhstan pavilion. What looked to be a short line took forever, as only 30 guests were let in at a time. After we got in, we saw why. We were moved slowly through four stations as a single group. The first was a highly interactive and technologically driven investigation into Kazakhstan, full of touchscreen monitors and Wii-like video games. The second was a 180 degree, 3D movie experience telling the story of Kazakhstan. The third was an actual winter setting, with real snow.

And the fourth had a live musical performance. Wow, they certainly knew how to entertain!

On our way out, we walked by a number of pavilions. South Korea, with an intricate complex, and Saudi Arabia, which had built an oasis on a platform, were the standouts.

With that, and a short bus ride, ferry ride, and taxi ride, we were off to dinner!

I am starving and that place sells food

One thing has become clear: the Expo has brought a lot of tourists to Shanghai (mostly domestic Chinese tourists). And with all those visitors, many of the tourist logistics are trickier than they would normally be. So, for example, we were planning to leave Shanghai for Beijing on Sunday night, but encountered a fully booked train. We pushed back to Monday night.

Another example has been with hotels. Our first place was secured for two nights, as we didn't know how long we would stay here nor if it was the right kind of place for us. Well, it was good enough. So when we went to extend it, we got some sad news: all booked for that night. Some quick work on the phones and internet and all close hotels were similarly full up.

This is a (perhaps long) way of saying that we found ourselves going to the Pudong side of Shanghai. It is very new, with wide boulevards, high rises, and very little apparent culture. Indeed, very little pedestrian activity. As shorthand, we called it Pu Jersey (with the Puxi side of Shanghai serving as Manhattan in this analogy). And the Motel 168 on Pudong Nan Lu was our home.

Well, with the morning twittered away with travel logistics, we were famished. We walked down Pudong Nan Lu until we saw the first sign of food, and we headed in. Tables were communal, and a couple of guys were finishing up when we sat down. The menu landed in front of us, a sea of Chinese characters. Luckily, there were some pictures on the outside of the restaurant, so Max escorted our waiter out there and picked some food.

One dish was cold and spicy noodles with bean sprouts. The noodles were fairly large, and the bean sprouts were tender. Oh, and the plate was lathered in chili oil. When the dish was done, there was a pool of spicy chili oil just laying there, waiting for another victim. My mouth was on fire.

The second served as a nice counterpoint, it being a meatball, tofu, and noodle soup. The broth had a nearly overwhelming essence of meatball, almost to he point of unpleasantness. But the ingredients within the soup were all individually very nice to eat.

Perhaps the best moment came when we asked for the check. The cashier said a number, which we didn't understand but guessed that it was forty-something yuan. We scoured our books, but found no quarter. Finally, we asked her to write it on the chopstick wrapper: 13 yuan, or less than $2USD for a completely filling and highly satisfying meal. Excellent.

That pot is hot, and spicy too!

Recently, I read Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Memoir of Eating in China. Wow, did it get me revved up to come here and chow. It also highlighted a number of dishes I knew I would have to try. One of those was Sichuanese hotpot. At its essence, there is a hot pot full ofliquid in the middle of the table. Into that you put your selection of raw meats, veggies, and noodles, eating them when cooked. The Sichuanese version adds a tremendous amount of spice to the mix. I got my wish early on in Shanghai, when we went to Hai Di Lao Huo Guo.

First, there was the broth. The container on our table had a divider, with one section a light mushroom flavor and one an incredibly spicy chilli flavor. We actually got to see them dump a very large bag of chillies into the broth. The bag looked like a bag of blood and was bigger than one.

Then there were the various raw ingredients we cooked in the soup.

Two kinds of meat shown here. In the back is thinly sliced lamb, it looks almost like prosciutto. It cooked nearly instantaneously in the broth, with just a quick wave back and forth. Scrumptious and light. In the foreground is marbled beef, which was exquisite. This stayed chewy when cooked and exuded a rich, beefy flavor.

There was also some strips of beef. These were also quite good, and great at soaking up the (very very spicy) broth.

Then the ingredients left the realm of normal (though remained very tasty). One was beef tripe. The intestine cooked lightly, remaining crunchy, almost al dente, to the bite. It was a fabulous change in texture and all funkiness from the product was gone.

The other wild ingredient was pig brain. I couldn't get a pre picture, just this post cooked brain on my plate. Note the glistening chilli oil all around. The brain was so creamy, blending nearly perfectly with the in-your-face heat of the broth. This was superb and we had another round.

There was also shrimp balls, potato, and pea shoots. The shrimp balls, rolled from that mass into balls and cooked through, were firm and meaty. The pea shoots cooked for about 25 seconds and were so good I think we ordered three more batches.

The last ingredient, and most theatrical, was the kung fu noodles. The trick with these noodles is that a trained technician comes out and conducts kung fu with the noodle dough, stretching it out before cutting it into strips. He is an artist and he is able to bring it within an inch of your face without it touching anything. Very neat. Noodles were excellent too.

A great accompaniment to the whole affair was the sauce bar. Here, the diner had their choice of about 30 ingredients to make a customized dipping sauce for their hot pot. There was sesame jam, chilli oil, pickled peppers, vinegar, and more. I couldn't decide and so made two, and also took liberally from others' concoctions.

The experience was excellent. And, importantly, the food was superb. The spice mixture added a ton of flavor and an ungodly amount of heat but didn't overwhelm the ingredients. By the end of the meal, I was tearing up and my sinuses were emptied. Wow.

As a bonus, one of my dining companions sweet-talked them into giving us a tour of the kitchen. Quite an operation, with everything spic and span and things moving forward at light speed.