Looks like it's now Friday. In Shanghai, China, you can experience all types of cuisines so you'll not get bored.
Last night for dinner, i was at a Chinese restaurant, popular for the Beijing Roasted Duck and this restaurant had a history of more than 100 years. I had tasted this dish about 3 weeks ago, so i only had seafood on Thursday night. Fresh live prawns, scallops and a fish. All swimming actively till they were chosen by me, and then served up in a whisk. The price is very cheap too, considering that these were live seafood and a meal for 2 only cost me about RMB100 (US$15).
In China, you can pamper yourself with body massages, hair cut, and more as the beauty salons, especially the hair salons are open till up to 11.30pm. After dinner, did some shopping (yes, it's more convenient and comfortable to shop during weekdays) before i headed to a hair saloon just 3 minutes walk away from my apartment. Be sure to check the prices and confirm before you proceed with any services. The stylists will definitely want to recommend you upgraded good versions of the services you choose.
I had a hair treatment for RMB128, and a hair cut with wash at RMB38. Pretty good deal, till i voluntarily gave them RMB1000 for their VIP cards which i can prepay and get huge discounts on future services. And i thought i was good at bargaining.... I'm gonna go for their body massage and hair colouring on this weekend, to ensure that i'm gonna use the pre-paid funds. When shopping in China, always ask whether they accept credit cards and mention it's international Visa / Mastercard as most of the smaller shops only accept the local Chinese debit cards. I even went back to my apartment to get the RMB1000 to pay them last night since they didn't accept any international credit cards.
When dining in China, the food price is normally not to high, but you'll probably pay more for the desserts and drinks. If you're on budget, then you can check out their local fast food companies. Friday morning, i had breakfast over at YongHe fast food. It's not as spacious as McDonalds or Hardees, but 1 interesting point is, everyone sits together really close. So, there i was at a table with 8 seats and there were actually 8 people on my table, but 3 different parties.
Here are some interesting points about this restaurant - Yong He.
- the logo looks exactly like Colonel Sanders of KFC and the restaurant theme even uses red and white
- you will order from the counter, prepay and the waiter will then send over your food to your table
- what are popular items you can try here? This restaurant is popular for it's soya bean drink (so good for protein lovers), "siau long pow" which are Shanghai pork dumplings filled with meat sauce, pork dumpling soup noodles
- you can even dip your Chinese breadstick "yau cha kwai" into the soyabean (so your drink can double up as a soup too)
However, if like me, you are not too interested in red meat, then you need to be extra careful. Most restaurants serve beef so they might even use the same serving spoon when preparing your dish. On Wednesday night, i decided to visit a Korean chain restaurant that features "Fruits" in their menu. So you'll have fruit sandwich, fruit juices, and even fruit pasta.
For those of you who know me, i'm a strict no beef / no mutton person, and i don't even like pork. My favourite is chicken and seafood. Therefore, i double checked and asked the manager whether there were any meat in the pasta sauce if i were to order the fruit pasta. She said "No." Then my dish came and there were small pieces (actually looked more like specks of dots) of dark grey item. I asked the waitress again, what are those? "They are herbs" she replied so i tried poking my fork into the dish and i got myself a mushroom. Must be safe then since i've asked more than once. But after having the 2nd mouthful, i was very confident that there were actually meat in it, so i demanded that the manager come and explain. It seems that since this was a new Korean snack store, so all the ingredients were from Korea and the pasta sauce label of ingredients was also in Korean language. The manager said she wasn't sure what meat it was....
No refunds were given, and even when my dining companion explained that this was not the proper way to do food business especially since some customers could be forbidded from eating certain meat and as the restaurant staff, then it's common sense that food menu on the list should be fully understood before they recommend the dish to the customers. One thing for sure then, i'm never gonna come back to this restaurant. The name is CanMore, located at the Fuzhou Road, Shanghai.
I had to gargle for more than 3 times, and brushed my teeth twice when i came back home as i've had experience of rather starving than to eat beef or mutton. In my twenty over years of life, i've only once accidentally eaten beef burger (1 bite when i was about 6 years old, when my mom accidentally purchased beef burger from the supermarket, thinking that it was chicken burger).
Thank god, that there was a KFC just beside so i could buy the chicken wings (hot wings) for my dinner on Wednesday night. For all travellers, it's always a relief to see something familiar where you can be assured on the food quality and speed, the fast food chain stores.
