Haiku

No, I am not going to try to write a Haiku for you (although my 6th grade Haiku writing skills aren't too shabby) Today, I went out to lunch with some colleagues to a "trendy" sushi restaurant called Haiku. As I prepare to go to Japan in December, I have been going through a Japanese food kick, to try to find good Japanese food in Shanghai to try to have something to compare to the real stuff in Japan. Actually, even though proximity wise, we are much closer to Japan then in the US, the Japanese food is not that great here, so I have really yet to find a place that I tell people that they need to try when they are in town. This place serves both the legit sushi and sashimi that are for the die hard Japanese food people, and they also serve American style sushi rolls (you know, the kind with cream cheese and all the stuff inside of it). I had read and heard a lot of good comments on it and to be honest, the place didn't disappoint. It will probably run between $15-$20USD per person (luckily I didn't have to flip the bill on this one), but if you want some good quality seafood in your sushi, then you will have to pay that kind of price here in Shanghai. It was by far the best sushi I have had in Shanghai, but not the best I have had in my life (that goes to a little place in old town Alexandria, VA). The rolls were right on tap with those that you can get in the US, and the raw fish on the legit sushi tasted fresh and was well prepared (or as prepared as raw fish can get). Actually, I think I am becoming less of a rolls type of guy because there is usually so much stuff on them that they mask the flavor of the fish (yes I realize that is the point of them in the US as many places don't have the best quality fish, so they just mask the quality of the fish by adding a bunch of stuff like avocado, cream cheese and sauces). Anyway, this place is a good start on my adventure to find Japanese food in Shanghai to compare against the real stuff in a couple of months.

Peanut Butter Adventure

Just to let all you readers know, for the first 21 years of my life my peanut butter, spread between two pieces of white bread, was always accompanied by classic JELLY. After I married Renee, she began to refine my palette to begin eating the better things in life…like JAM. So as of the last 6 years, I have been enjoying my peanut butter coupled with various kinds of jams. Well, now that I am well into my 27's and heading straight towards my 28's, I figured I would go out on a limb and try some different variations to my peanut butter sandwich. In the last two days I have gone with two different variations. Yesterday I went with a peanut butter and banana sandwich. This is a sandwich of myths that I remember seeing on the plethora of kids shows that I got to watch growing up. It was quite enjoyable, but it was not quite on the level of peanut butter and jam, sorry Chiquita. Today I went with the ever loving peanut butter and honey combination. Maybe it was the honey that I used, but it didn't bring out the peanutty flavor that jam brings out. So thus far my adventure has shown me that a good ole peanut butter and jam sandwich is the way to go.

Feel free to shoot me any suggestions for combinations with my peanut butter (be realistic). Not sure I will try a peanut butter and bologna sandwich, but I am pretty open to non-meat combinations with my peanut butter.

Food-Extravaganza

One last thing about my San Francisco trip was some of the goods eats that I got while I was there (and not busy).

In n Out Burger – Proclaimed by many to be one of the best (if not the best) fast food burger out there. Actually the last time I went to In n Out I was a little disappointed by the regular Double Double. Not to be one that just gives up on places, I decided to venture towards the not so "secret" menu and get a Double Double Animal Style. This was my first night back in the US and it didn't disappoint, in fact I was thoroughly impressed. This thing had all the right things in all the right places (wait, am I talking about a hamburger?). This burger put me back on the In n Out bandwagon, I can't wait for my next one.

Darby Dan's – I usually stay in South San Francisco (SSF) when I go to the US and, in addition to the city being the self proclaimed "birthplace of biotechnology," it is also a hub for really good HUGE deli sandwiches (see the picture, not taken by me). Now I am not saying they can compete with the folks in NYC, but these sandwiches each come with their own personality and one of the places that I have glommed onto is Darby Dan's. This time around I went for the Sleeper, which is basically turkey, ham, provolone and bacon with all the weird fixin's this place puts on their sandwiches. This is by far one of the best sandwiches I have ever had, it was absolutely stupendious. If you happen to flying into SFO airport (which is also in SSF), you might want to make a quick detour to this place, it is a true experience.

Patxis Pizza – Chicago deep dish pizza right in the heart of…Palo Alto? Okay, maybe not the mecca of Chicago deep dish, but these guys must have spent some time in the windy city as they know what they are doing. For me, the Chicago deep dish is all about great sauce and great crust and this place is doing a good job with both of those. My only complaint is the crust is a little salty, not sure if it supposed to be, but I almost remember seeing deer outside the shop licking a pile of crust…oh well, this was another solid choice.

La Tapatia – In a land where there is no even halfway decent Mexican food, I come back to the states with Mexican food on the mind. La Tapatia is a tacqueria in SSF that is leaps and bounds above any kind of Mexican I can get on the east coast (China of course I can't get anything good). This time around I decided on the carne asada burrito, and this was a great choice. Everything that I could wish after living in the desert of Mexican food, very delightful.

So if you are ever in the bay area, all of the places noted above would make for a good stop, too bad when I am living in China I am over 6,000 miles away from these places and when I live in the US I am over 3,000 miles away from these place…oh well.

Soulfood in Shanghai

I really really hope this post doesn't come up for anyone who is truly looking for soulfood in Shanghai, because if you are, then I'm sorry, I can't help.

Even though more and more American style foods are becoming available in the grocery stores here, the items are fairly expensive since they are imported from the States (not to mention the 17% customs tax added to it). As a result, Renee has been trying to make things from scratch. These things include homemade corn tortillas, homemade biscuits, homemade cornbread (no, this is not a picture that i took), homemade chicken pot pie, etc. In fact, while our domestic helper, Fen, cooks Chinese for us most of the week, she has begun to pick up some recipes from Renee and try to refine some of her cooking to include western items that we like. Hence, when I look back on this week's array of foods that I sat down to eat at home, I noticed that we had quite the American spread. Our meals included such Southern comfort favorites such as fried chicken, ribs (Chinese style), and biscuits and gravy. Throw in a spattering of homemade Gung Bao Chicken (in the US it is referred to as Kung Pao Chicken) along with rice, noodles, and some vegetables and I guess we are not really suffering for good food over here.

So if you happen to have found this posting by a google search, just come on by and you might have a chance of having some good soulfood, you might even have luck and come when we are serving Chicken Fried Cat...it's da bomb.

The spiciest chip in the....wait

One souvenir that I was given from Japan was the chips that were in the bag pictured above. Even though I don't read any Japanese, a fairly universal way of saying that something is really spicy is to not just put a hot pepper on your bag, rather put a hot pepper that looks angry and has taken a couple of punches in his day. The Japanese are not really well known for their spciy foods (unless you like to take large bites of wasabi), so I wasn't expecting anything too spicy. The chip was a corn chip shaped in O's, a consistency very similar to that of a Frito. The flavor, while not overwhemingly spicy, had a nice kick to it. The chip was actually a very very good chip with some nice flavor to it. All in all, it was one of the best chips I have ever had...not as spicy as it appears to have been advertised, but who cares that was a darn good chip. For the makers of this chip I do give one piece of advice: I would try to sell the product with more a friendly looking hot pepper...one that says, yes I have a little spice to me, but in the end I will leave you smiling...this pepper just looks like he wants you to suffer at both ends of the eating spectrum.

Gotta love the flavor of breakfast....

Outside of our hotel there was this advertisement for some "Breakfast Flavoured Milk." Now I eat many things for breakfast, oatmeal, yogurt, eggs, cereal, so I am not sure what breakfast flavour tastes like, but this really could not be good. As you can see you have Malt flavored and Walnut Flavored milk, I have never had walnuts for breakfast so that would not be a breakfast flavour that I would be familiar with, but maybe they should next invent Eggs Benedict, Oatmeal or Toast and Jelly…..yummm toast and jelly flavored milk.

Singapore Day #4

We started the day with a traditional Singaporean breakfast of Kaya Toast, runny eggs, and coffee with condensed milk. The kaya toast is a type of bread with a coconut jam type of spread on it and runny eggs are what they sound like, eggs that have only been partially cooked (hence the runniness). This was a very very good breakfast, a great way to start the day of touring, although I wouldn't suggest eating this breakfast on a regular basis.

When we left we noticed that it was pouring outside, so we took the subway and rode the bus to our next destination, the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. By the time we got there, the rain had subsided and was mostly a mist or a light rain. Luckily the nature reserve had lots of…well…nature that protected us from the light rain. We hiked up the "mountain" (it is a mountain for Singapore, but it is more like a small hill for the rest of the world) and got some nice pictures of…nature. They had some signs saying that there would be a fine if you fed the monkeys, but my theory is that they just put those signs there to get people excited to see monkeys when in fact, there are no monkeys, just my theory. By the time we were leaving the nature reserve the rain had pretty much subsided, so we decided to continue our adventure and head to Chinatown.

Now I live in Shanghai, so there are not many Chinatown's that impress me, as I live in the biggest Chinatown in the world. Singapore's was okay, not too much going on there, just a bunch of stalls selling junk, the same junk that I can get in Shanghai for much cheaper (actually most of those vendors buy their stuff in China and then bring it back to Singapore to sell to tourists for an ungodly amount.

We moved onto to the other cultural center of Singapore, Little India. Here we walked around a bit and got the notion that gold is a really big thing in India as there were hundreds of stalls and stores selling gold stuff. We eventually made our way to an area that had a bunch of restaurants and found a nice Indian restaurant. The service was great and they had some really good food. The chicken tikka masala (a staple for me) was just okay, but the rest of the food was great, so it kind of balanced itself out into a really good meal.

We took a short break in the afternoon and then headed to the Night Safari. This is basically a safari/zoo that is only open at night. We saw the Creatures of the Night Show and that was pretty neat (nothing too great, but fun), and then we went on the tram ride through the park. There were some parts were the animals roamed free (mostly just small harmless dear), and most of the dangerous animals were in areas that were protected by moats. The best part of the night safari was going into the flying fox cage. When you go in, you go in through a bunch of gates that make it so that the flying fox could not get out and when you enter the flying foxes are jumping all over the place, to the point where they are jumping right over your head and it almost feels like they are about to hit you. Anyway, the Night Safari is definitely worth a visit. After the Night Safari (around 11:30pm), we just went back to the hotel to retire for the night. A long day, but a very good day.

Singapore Day #3

My Saturday morning started with some grocery shopping to pick up some stuff to take back to Shanghai. I started at Fair Price Extra (a hypermarket here in Singapore). I bought some generic Cheerios and some other items to take back for the family. We then went for a walk down the Orchard Road shopping street (right by our hotel).

My colleague and I then headed off to the Riverwalk in downtown Singapore. We walked through Boat Quay and then saw the Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles statue along with the Merlion that spits water all day long. It was a pretty nice walk and a nice area of town.

We then headed East to the East Coast Park. This is a stretch of beach that has restaurants, biking, kayaking, boating, walking paths, and almost anything else you can do around a beach. Before starting any activities, we were pretty hungry, as I mentioned on my last post I love Beef Rendang, and Burger King actually has a Rendang Burger. So we went into BK and tried the Rendang burger, it actually wasn't bad considering it was from BK. We then rented some bikes and rode around for a couple of hours. After biking, we sat at a bar on the beach and enjoyed some drinks to cool down. We then went into 7-11 to get a slurpee, oh man this slurpee was one of the best I have ever had. I enjoyed my slurpee while sitting at the beach and watching the waves hit the shore, all I can say is that Singapore has definitely been hard work so far.

We ended the night with getting together with some of my friends from Shanghai that moved back to Singapore. We went to another local hawker center and had some pork wonton noodles, some satay, some stingray, and the famous Chili Crab. They gave us the claws because we were guests, and there was so much meat in the claws, it was so so good...no check that, it was one of the best meals that I have ever had. The combination of the long day of going around and seeing things and being able to sit outside and enjoy this awesome food, it was almost perfect. After the long day we were beat so we went back to the hotel and fell asleep, but this was definitely the best day so far.

The San Francisco Treat

Move over Rice-a-Roni, cause I seem to be the new the king of San Fran. Just in case you didn't know, I am in San Francisco, to be more specific, South San Francisco for a couple of days. Some highlights from the trip thus far:

-Flight was delayed over 3 hours in Shanghai, not a fun start to the trip.

-Gas prices are insane, the first gas station I passed had one gallon of regular for $3.79, that is just not right.

-Due to the very very record setting long first round of the draft, despite my 3 hour flight delay, I was still able to get to my hotel room to see the Baltimore Ravens select Ben Grubbs from Auburn University in the first round of the draft. Not too flashy of a pick, but a need for the Ravens. They have used the last couple of drafts to build up their line, so next year they will be able to focus on flashier positions. I was going to rant about the Ravens not addressing their quarterback need, but they drafted QB Troy Smith in the 5th round, which should end up being interesting, not saying he will ever be good enough to start, but he definitely will add something to this team.

-Hotel room is awesome, leaps and bounds above even the best hotel room I have stayed in in China.

-Little Lucca's in South San Francisco makes a really really good sandwich. Stood in line for about 1/2 an hour, but it was worth the wait, that sandwich was indeed one of the best that I have had in a really long time. (Big enough that it was both my lunch and dinner, although I probably should have spread it out to 3 or 4 meals).

-I wanted to get a couple of CD's while here in the States, I picked The Killer's CD and the Silversun Pickups CD. Basically I heard Lazy Eye from the Silversun Pickups as I was pulling into Target, so naturally I decided this was my sign to buy the CD.

-My List, track 9 from The Killer's CD, not sure I totally identified these guys as glamour rockers from their first album, but this song alone reminds me of everything that was Queen. This album is a really good album, they hold to what they are good at, forget the critics, this one is a good listen.

-Birthplace of Biotechnology - South San Francisco identifies itself as this, I think all of the Biotech firms have moved out of this area by now, but I guess it is their claim to fame.

-In and Out Burger, actually Five Guys is better, but they still do a good job.

-Americans are really fat!!! Yes I mentioned two food places above, that probably doesn't help my cause, but when you live in a country full of people who are skin and bones, it becomes really obvious when you are passing people that have serious health problems. Listen I am not the skinniest guy in the world, but its hard to not notice the weight problems Americans have.

Okay, back to business.