E Woks's Profile
how do you say fresh water snails......
Hmm, I've lived in China for four years and I've still not progressed from pointing at things and saying "je ge"
Yangshuo Recommendations?
Jenn, well, still in China anyway, Shanghai though, not Yangshuo.
Yes, I stayed at Moon Resort for 4 days, the place is fantastic, super clean, super helpful staff, very tastefully decorated, great location (make sure you take a bike ride to the ancient villages of longtang and liugong, that was the highlight of my trip, photos on my blog if you're interested, search for "liugong longtang" in google).
The only issue with Moon Resort is that it's on the main street in moon village which turns into a lunch stopover for all the tour buses, if you're planning on hanging around the hotel during the day at all it's not so nice, the place is packed with tour groups, gift stalls etc and there's a continuous traffic jam for most of the day with peeping buses which park on the open ground in front of the Moon Resort (but as I say, if you're planning on being out all day you'll never notice). In the evenings there's not much to do in the Moon Village, it's totally dead, well, nothing to do other than eat at one of the local restaurants and drink wine on your balcony!
I would really really recommend considering the Moon Resort's sister hotel the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat, we stopped there for lunch one day on a bike ride, the location is fantastic, right on the river front and much more remote than the Moon Resort (depends what you're looking for I guess), definitely more peaceful than the Moon Resort during the daytime, and the food was just about the best we had during the trip.
Oh, one tip, take mosquito repellent and insect bite cream, gallons of both! Especially if you go to see the show on the river, you wouldn't believe the sheer number of mosquitos and other insects, it's like watching the show through a blizzard.
My Rest. Choices for Shanghai + Beijing
Sorry to be pedantic but Di Shui Dong is hunan food, not Sichuan! For Sichuan food there's a new place which is well worth checking out, Citizen Sichuan on Donghu Lu, my new favourite Sichuan restaurant!
My friends who live in Beijing swear by Da Dong for Beijing duck (Quan Ju De is for tourists), they took me there in my last trip, great stuff!
Yeah, People's Seven is good (if you can figure out how to get in the place), you reminded me I've not been there for a while
Yangshuo Recommendations?
Yeah exactly, makes sense I suppose, it's a tourist town and people generally only stay for one or two days, very few return customers to impress.
Yangshuo Recommendations?
Ok, kind of answering my own question here but if you're thinking of going to Yangshuo for food then forget about it.
Many many many places to eat but even the restaurants we received recommendations for (checked on Frommers etc) were very average, expensive and several places gave dubious portions (in Mei You diner we ordered 1kg of beer fish as we did in every other restaurant but the portion seemed significantly smaller).
The beer fish is tasty though! The best we had was a place we found at random on a side street away from the main bustle of the high street. Oh, the food at the Mountain Retreat out of town was pretty good too.
Yangshuo Recommendations?
This is a long shot but I'm currently staying in Yangshuo (well, Moon Hill Village to be precise) and want to take my partner out for a special meal tonight, does anyone have any recommendations?
Where are the best local restaurants in Beijing, China?
I have friends in Beijing, they tell me that Da Dong is just about the best place for Beijing Duck (Quan Ju De and the others are mainly for tourists).
They took me last time I was there, it was excellent, the presentation especially was outstanding, I'll definitely go again next time I'm in BJ.
Dumplings in Shanghai
hmm, I've not had a mushy one before, sounds a bit weird, they're normally semi-firm, quite similar to XLB filling
Best Sushi in Shanghai? (Quality over Quantity)
One of my colleagues knows a well known Korean chef in Shanghai, one of his recommendations was Kohane in Gubei area.
I went there with Japanese colleagues, I thought the food was excellent, they also thought the food was very good (but the service wasn't quite up to top Japanese standards).
It's on Hongmei Lu on the side of the pearl market, you can't miss it, it's the small Japanese place with two large round windows.
Can't find anything about this place on the internet for some reason.
Hand hammered woks
Zeldog, you can still find 100% hand made but they're very difficult to find, I've met a few different guys now who are starting from a round sheet of metal and making them 100% manually with fire and hammers, one family in particular are head and shoulders above the others. It's a dying art though, the younger generation has typically gone off to university to do business and the fathers are basically trying to make enough money to retire. You can find other things too, hand made knives, hand beaten copper cookware, hardwood chopping boards etc, but again they're getting very difficult to find.
For info a 36cm wok typically takes 1 guy 5 hours to make, a 64cm wok takes 2 guys 2 days, a machine made wok takes seconds, if you see a "hand made" wok for 18 dollars I would be very cautious!. When hand hammered woks are made well the structure is changed by the fire and hammering making the surface very hard (something which doesn't happen during machine forming) and they can be expected to last in excess of 5 years in commercial kitchens (continuous use) where they typically eventually fail from the outside in, in the home I guess you're looking at 20-30 years easily.
Give me a shout if you need any more info!
Doggie Bag Culture in Shanghai?
Cimui, I regularly do that, my office is out of town with no good food nearby, if I go out for dinner the night before I often take my "lock a lock" boxes and fill them up for lunch the next day (my girlfriend does too).
Of course this also means we can order double the amount of dishes!
Butchers Block
Do you guys know much about Excentrodendron hsienmu from China? Can't find much info on chopping blocks made from these on the web.
3 Nights in Shanghai
I'll second the Southern Barbarian suggestion, one of my favourites (nothing to do with their enormous imported beers menu), if you go make sure you try their cold eggplant starter with tomato and soy sauce!
3 Nights in Shanghai
I'll second Southern Barbarian, one of my favourites, make sure you try their eggplant cold starter (with tomato and soy sauce), they've got the most extensive beer menu in Shanghai too, they must have 50 or so imported beers if not more.
Vietnamese in Beijing or Shanghai
I was going to mention Pho No 1. Incidentally if you're going for pizza, ignore the New York Pizza and go into Pizza e Pasa next door, fantastic pizzas, their quattro formaggi is my favourite in shanghai
Dumplings in Shanghai
I prefer Shengjian to xiao long bao, for excellent shengjian I have found 2 places so far that I'd really recommend, one is on tianyaoqiao lu, midway between nandan lu and caoxi lu (you can't miss it, shengjian is always prepared next to an open window in huge 3 feet diameter frying pans) and the other is on jianguo lu, midway between chongqing lu (the raised road) and danshui lu.
Yang's is good but it's so busy that you normally have to take away and I don't enjoy the overall experience so much.
It's interesting that everyone has their own way of eating shengjian, I roll mine round in vinegar, then bite a hole in the top and drink the soup inside, then pull out the meat with chopsticks, dip in vinegar and eat that, then finish off the rest of the dumpling with regular vinegar dips.
Did I mention that I like vinegar?
Looking for great spicy food hole in the wall in Shanghai
This is the place you need to go, and lucky for you, just off Nanjing Road (right next to Nanjing Xi Lu metro station)
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/listings/dining/sichuan/has/hua-hua-chuan-cai/
it's called Hua Hua Chuan Cai.
It's actually on wuijang lu and halfway down, you'll probably see a queue outside, it only has 4 tables inside.
Try their spinach (I think) in red FuRu (ah, they mention it in the link) and the duck (they mention this as well), absolutely fantastic, pretty much the best Sichuan in Shanghai.
Unfortunately the whole block is being torn down to make way for another shopping mall (like Shanghai needs any more??), it might already be too late!
Another place worth trying is the newly opened Citizen Sichuan on Donghu Lu, a bit more upmarket but excellent food (please ignore South Beauty, I never understood the interest in this place) and it's always worth a visit to Di Shui Dong (Maoming Lu/Changle Lu) or Guyi (can't remember address) for Hunan food!
Doggie Bag Culture in Shanghai?
The rule in China is that if you eat all the food they haven't ordered enough, in my first trips over here I would be embarrassed at the amount of food left at the end of the meal and attempt to finish off my favourite dishes, but as I finished off the last morsel the customer/colleague would raise their hand and order the same dish again, as apparently there wasn't enough.
Don't worry about ordering doggy bags (just ask for Da Bao), it's an acceptable practise. At our factory opening ceremony we hired a boat on the Huangpu River for a dinner cruise, it was a very average buffet with customers, company directors etc present. As we left the boat and boarded the coach to take us back we were followed by a stream of waiters pushing trolleys of packaged food which they proceeded to load onto the bus after we'd got on, turned out one of our finance team had asked for "Da Bao". In the west this would have been somewhat embarrassing but over here it's a different world!
Moved in with fiance...what do I cook??
Hmm, when my girlfriend moved in I made her Italian / Indian / British food, but her favourite by far was baked beans on toast with cheese on top (she's Chinese, never tried it before).
I give up.......
