Jesus. Could it get any hotter? It’s definitely summer in Shanghai when you need to take 4 showers a day. In addition to oppressing humidity, summer also brings us delicious fruit – yang mei (杨梅) berries and fragrant lychees! Get them from your local fruit vendor.
Uncategorized
1
Jul 10
Summer in Full Effect
1
Jul 10
Pop Up Market at Central Studios!
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
Pop Up Market at Central Studios
10am – 4pm
1F Bldg I, 751 Huangpi Nan Lu at Jianguo Lu
Come join us for Jellymonification, the She Eats Stall, yummy treats, dope beats, and lots of cute shit from my closet! The best part? A share of the proceeds go to Roots & Shoots Million Tree Project! Come eat, drink, buy, dance, and have fun!
See you there!
22
Jun 10
Phat in Shanghai: Homemade Croque Madame
I woke up Sunday with a craving for a croque madame. I thought this would be easy enough to find in French-influenced Shanghai, but after trying (what barely passed for) a croque at Balthazar, I figured it would be safer and cheaper to make it myself. So off I went to Pines where I gathered up ingredients for croques complete with side salad and roasted potatoes for $90RMB, the most expensive item being a block of emmental at $45RMB.
There it is! A homemade croque madame with a smear of mustard seed, an emmental & parmesan bechamel, and a perfectly runny egg! Now taking reservations at Le Cafe de Ley.
Enjoy!
22
Jun 10
Shanghaisolved.com
I just discovered a website that will make your life in Shanghai a million times easier. I have so many questions about Shanghai, like:
Where can I find a good quality cleaver?
Is the sausage at Pines really made of meat?
Is it called the Huangpu because its poo-colored?
Now I finally have a place to ask them! Hop on over to Shanghai Solved and ask away!
21
Jun 10
Phat in Shanghai: Crawfish Boil
Happy Summer Equinox! Today marks the very first day of summer – and summer in Shanghai means plenty of yang mei berries (杨梅), hot sweaty bike rides, and lots and lots of crawfish, aka xiao long xia (小龙虾). I consider myself an adventurous eater, but the unrefrigerated, oily crawdads peddled on Shouning Lu might just be a little TOO adventurous for me. Luckily, our friend Mark invited us along for an annual Southern-style crawfish boil taking place at Cuvee Kaiba in Jing’an. I had been looking forward to this for an entire week!
Our gracious and generous host, Jason, is a boy from down south who boils up his crawfish with plenty of lemons, potatoes, corn, and spices galore. His crawfish boil was done Louisiana style, meaning the whole pot is dumped on a long table for the hungry masses to share.
Jason’s crawfish were exceptionally clean – nothing but tasty goodness inside those heads. I dug in with much gusto, resulting in lips numb from the spice!
What a great way to start the summer. Thanks to Mark and Jason for a delicious afternoon!
16
Jun 10
Phat in Shanghai: Simply Thai with Diningsecretary.com
The lovely folks at diningsecretary.com invited me and some other bloggers for a delicious lunch at Simply Thai in Xintiandi. If you haven’t heard of them before, Dining Secretary provides restaurant recommendations on their website and a reservation service which can be reached by dialing (86-21)5757 5777 (in Chinese, this sounds like I eat, I eat, I eat eat eat!) Reserve with them and they’ll send you a confirmation by text message which you can easily pass along to your dining companions. Clever!
I had never been to Simply Thai before so I was looking forward to it. We started with a huge appetizer sampler that included some skewers and fresh rice paper rolls, all very delicious. My favorite appetizer was the soft shell crab salad. The salad came with a generous portion of deep fried crab, which was tossed with some greens in a sweet and tangy dressing. More crab > greens = delicious!
Simply Thai’s tom yum was the perfect combination of spicy and sour. I especially liked the nice, fat, perfectly-cooked prawn that came floating in my soup.
The mussels with chili paste were my hands-down favorite. By the end of the meal a heap of mussel shells had accumulated on my plate. Couldn’t help myself – the mussels were so fresh and meaty. Definitely get this dish.
The fried crispy fish with mango in tamarind sauce was another great main course dish. The crispy texture of the fish was paired perfectly with the tender mango coated in sesame seeds – a winning combo which worked well with the sweet and salty tamarind sauce.
Even though I was stuffed, I couldn’t help but completely demolish my dessert plate, which featured sago & coconut pudding with fresh fruit. A soft chewy layer of sago was studded with corn kernels was topped with coconut pudding – the perfect sweet treat to wrap up lunch.
Thanks Simply Thai and Shau Ru & Raph for hosting such a delicious event!
You can read Shau Ru’s write up of Simply Thai on From Dumplings to Donuts.
Enjoy!
Simply Thai
Xintiandi
Lane 181 Taicang Lu at Madang Lu
太仓路181号，新天地北里近马当路
+86 21 6326 2088
www.simplythai-sh.com
13
Jun 10
Happy Dragon Boat Festival!
Happy Duanwu Jie (端午節), aka Dragon Boat Festival! Duanwu is a holiday celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, hence its Chinese name meaning “double five.”
My favorite part of the festival is of course the zongzi (粽子), or the sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. Eating zongzi is symbolic of Qu Yuan, a poet who was drowned in 277 B.C. The villagers tried to save him in their dragon boats, then threw cooked rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the water so the fish would eat that instead. This old tale became the sticky and delicious tradition of zongzi in Chinese communities around the world.
You can get zongzi with a variety of fillings – red bean, peanuts, hong shou rou, mung beans, dried scallops, salty duck egg yolk.. the list goes on and on! My mother makes the BEST zongzi, hands down. Hers are long and plump, filled with a fatty slice of pork belly marinated in chinese five spice, a dried scallop, and a salty duck egg yolk. The zongzi are steamed until the rice is soft and sticky, and the fat of the pork has melted into every grain, mingling with the subtle flavors imparted by the bamboo leaf… rendering the entire thing fragrant and delicious!!! Just a little bit of soy sauce on the side and welcome to duanwu heaven. Wrapping these zongzi with my mother has become one of my favorite activity of mine – I look forward to it every time I go home.
Making zongzi is simple, but takes some time and is pretty much only worth it if you’re going to make a ton. Foodmayhem.com has a great recipe and how-to for the DIYers.
For those who are a little less hands-on, check out where I got my zongzi this year.
Enjoy!
11
Jun 10
Phat in Hong Kong: Random Food Finds
Whenever I go to Hong Kong I get a little crazy about the food. I can’t even make it down the block without ogling every edible item in sight. And there are a lot of edibles in sight.
Here is a mix plate of bean curd/wheat gluten goodies I picked up at a veggie restaurant in Sai Ying Pun. The mix plate costs $25HKD and you get a little bit of everything – regular wheat gluten (my fav), curry flavored gluten, sweet and sour gluten, fried bean curd sheet rolls, and various other bean goodies, all of which have different textures. Some are soft and silky, others are firm and smooth like the white of an egg. All worth a try!
After watching my friend Lindsay’s food films, I was really itching to try a 7-11 hotdog. Actually, I want to try all the weird food they offer at 7-11. But thats for another time. You buy these refrigerated and use the microwave to heat it up. Verdict: not bad!
I took a quick trip to the island of Cheung Chao (長洲) for some E&E – exploration and eating. Cheung Chao is only about 35 minutes away by fast ferry, which you can catch from Pier 5 in Central. Like Lamma and Sai Kung, its got a bunch of beach-front seafood restaurants offering up classic Cantonese dishes. Cheung Chao is a really nice place to visit, its got lots of winding lanes, cute boutiques, and beaches and hiking trails. So much to explore!
There are also lots of street eats – we tried this grilled dried squid snack basted with hot sauce. Delicious! Apparently there is a nightly street food market at the pier when the sun goes down – can’t wait to go back to check it out.
Enjoy!
27
May 10
Cai Guo Qiang at the Rockbund Art Museum
Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Cai Guo Qiang exhibit at the newly-opened Rockbund Art Museum (RAM). I saw his retrospective at the Guggenheim in NYC, and his work definitely left an impression on me. The RAM is a great addition to Shanghai’s art spaces. It’s in a beautiful historic art-deco building just a block over from the Bund.
The RAM has a nice little cafe on the top floor for drinks and a great view of the Pearl Tower. They’ve got an outdoor patio on the roof and if you save your ticket stub, you get $10 off your coffee.
Peasant Da Vincis is one of the most interesting exhibitions I’ve seen in awhile. It is comprised of a selection of works by China’s farmer-inventors curated by Cai. I first came across the inventions of Chinese famers when reading about bikes in China. These guys are really inspiring; some of them live in remote areas in China and are driven purely by passion and the urge to create technology unseen by the West – they come up with some crazy stuff. You’ll have to take my word for it an check out the exhibit for yourself.
Enjoy!
Rockbund Art Museum
20 Huqiu Road at Beijing Lu
虎丘路20号近北京东路
Entrance: $15RMB
+86 21 3310-9985
24
May 10
Tweetin & Eatin’
An annoying food blogger in Saigon.
A couple friends of mine emailed me links to these articles in the NYTimes and NYMag about bloggers (who? me?) who take photos of their meals and post them online. I thought they were really interesting, but was most intrigued by the diners and chefs who complained that food photography at neighboring tables disturbed their meals. I can understand that full tripod set up & flash can be irritating, but whats wrong with a quick flashless snap on a point and shoot?
The articles also mention establishments where food photography has been banned, like La Esquina and Momofuku in NYC. I took a step back and tried to commiserate with the chefs, but I also feel that as a patron, if I pay $xx for a dish at restaurant, I kind of feel like I’ve purchased the right be able to photograph it.. or even smear it all over my face if I should fancy it! What do you guys think? Either way take a peek at the articles.. and the hilarious comments sections!
