Eating is consuming us...

From Shanghai_oldtown

Hey! butter me up - I'm on a roll! It's Jenn here again. Dining out has become quite a predicament. It is rare to see only two people dining together here in China, whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Sean and I have found ourselves many times at a huge table built for a family of twelve. And then they come with the menu, only one menu from which they expect Sean to order for the both of us… yeah right, as if I would let him order what I am going to eat. After finally getting my point across that I need a menu as well, the waiter hovers over the table waiting to take your order. They don't leave to get drinks, they just stand there politely, waiting. Now, as Sean has mentioned, the menus are mostly in Chinese with some poorly taken pictures from decades ago. If you have ever tried to order from just a picture, then you can see what I am faced with - is that chicken, pork, fish or something that I would never consider eating? And now the pressure is really on because they, there are always two or three, are waiting for my order and I have a ten page menu to look through. I really need to learn how to say, “Give me a minute to look through the menu” in Mandarin.

I wrote down a few dishes from one of the restaurants that we recently ate at one of the largest malls in China here in Shanghai, the WestGate. If you have a squeamish stomach you should skip down a few lines. I could have dined on Double Boiled Fish Head with Chinese Herb, or Deep Fried Crispy Pigeon, or how about the Deep Fried Pigs Stomach with Spicy Salt? And for dessert they offered Sweetened Snow Fungus & Dried Longan in syrup, Soufflé Egg White Ball with Mashed Red Bean & Banana (Sean actually ordered this and said it was unbelievable!!), or Glutinous Ball in Sweetened Wine. Yummy! I opted for the Dandan Mian which is thin wheat noodles served with pork, scallions and red hot chili oil. I cheated and looked the dish up in my mandarin book. Now you can see why I think that I might starve here. Just kidding, Mom, I am eating fine! (She worries about me)

Thank goodness that Sean and I took the liberty before leaving Tampa to visit all of our favorite restaurants and “tanked up” so we can spare to lose a few pounds - one of us more than the other. And speaking of “tanking up”- I coined this phrase one day at a restaurant where we had a normal food buffet and Sean remarked at how much I was eating. I told him that I was taking advantage of the food for fear that it would be awhile before I would eat so plentiful, hence, tanking up.

Eating has consumed us. It is all we think about, it seems. This is for other reasons as well. If it is not about the fact that we will not be able to find a place that we can order something off the menu then it is about the strict hours that they serve the food. Most restaurants only serve during very specific hours. I would like to say this should become less of a problem when we finally get into our apartment but I don’t see that changing anything. I have seen the grocery store and I have no idea what is in those cans or bags nor would I know what to do with it. I could barely cook back home! I am not giving up though. I have eaten some things that I never thought I would eat and they really were not that bad. And I didn’t get sick from them which is extremely important. All that said, we have found a few safe places where we know we can go but to us that is cheating us out of the Shanghai experience that we did come here for.

Other minor issues - what is up with all the little bowls and ladles - what do you use to eat what with and how? Sean and I have found that the phrase “When in Rome” works well here. We find ourselves looking at the people around us and seeing how they are eating and with what they are eating with and do likewise. Sean has gotten much better with his chopsticks and can even eat rice with them even though it is totally appropriate to put the bowl right up to your mouth and use the shovel method. For me, I have been a chopstick pro for years! One phrase that I have already learned is “Qing Maidan” pronounced Ching Madan which means “Check Please” … until next time, Love to all and Mom I really am eating fine!