photos- friday muslim food market
In anticipation of every Friday's muslim prayer call, Changde Road across from the mosque becomes a lively market home to tasty goodies from local Muslim and Uighur communities in Shanghai. I went out last week to take a look.
The air was heavy with the scent of cumin-rubbed lamb and freshly baked naan. People lined the streets, chatting with vendors, filling up on familiar foods from home, and greeting old friends. The sense of community and festivity was undeniable. I felt kind of weird with my big camera though, and only got a few shots, but here you go.
The air was heavy with the scent of cumin-rubbed lamb and freshly baked naan. People lined the streets, chatting with vendors, filling up on familiar foods from home, and greeting old friends. The sense of community and festivity was undeniable. I felt kind of weird with my big camera though, and only got a few shots, but here you go.
Friday Shanghai Muslim Market
Changde Lu in between Aomen Lu and Yichang Lu
常德路，近澳门路和宜昌路
Every Friday, 11am onwards
a fairytale wedding and a Michelin-star meal at the Peninsula on the Bund
This weekend was my friends Hanna and Andrew's wedding. It was the sweetest affair, the vows andspeeches were so heartfelt and touching that I was a complete sobfest, a mascara-streaking embarrassment. If this is someone else's wedding, I can't even imagine...
Of course, Hanna spent hours making sure the meal was prepared to perfection. The 7 course dinner was catered by head chefs from the Peninsula's Michelin award-winning chefs Chi Ping Xu and Tang Chi Keung. The product was a custom menu that honors the Chinese art of 'food ordering', creating a dining experience where each dish complements the others in color, texture, temperature, and flavour.
The first course- Traditional Barbeque Meat Combination
- roast duck, char siu pork, crispy suckling pig, Shanghai-style crispy fish, and marinated jellyfish.
King Crab in Hot & Sour Soup
Grouper, Black Mushroom, Yunnan Ham
-steamed and lightly seasoned fish with ginger and scallion with a thin slice of prized Yunnan ham for added umami
Abalone and Sea Cucumber
- perfect
Beef Steak & XO Radish Cake
- organic xue long beef from Dalian province served with radish cake fried in XO - a slightly spicy, dried scallop and shrimp sauce
Dessert Trio: Cream, Jelly, Tart
- shot of chilled sago cream, spoon of osmanthus jelly, a mini egg tart
Wedding (Cup) Cake
- banana cake with cream cheese frosting
the view from Sir Elly's, which beats even the Vue in its panorama...
Congratulations to the happy and oh-so-perfect couple!
Grace Vineyard Symphony Series and New Releases Tasting Notes
I was lucky enough to have been invited to the Grace Vineyard New Releases Tasting at their new Grace Vineyard Club on Yan'an Road in Shanghai yesterday afternoon. The clubhouse is located inside a majestic mansion just dripping with history and style.
I finally met Judy Leissner- the proprietress of the vineyard, often hailed as China's best-who I've admired from afar ever since I first tasted her Symphony series muscat last year. She told me the clubhouse is open to the public but isn't being promoted to reserve for family and friends. The space is ye Shanghai, smells of cigars, and even has a traditional kun opera stage!
The wine started flowing early at 3pm, and I managed to taste every one of the 11 new releases. All in a hard day's work right? I started with with the whites; Symphony Series 2009, Chardonnay 2008, Premium Chardonnay 2008, Tasya's Reserve Chardonnay 2007, Rose 2008, and rounded up with the Premium Cabernet Merlot 2008, Tasya's Reserve Merlot 2008, 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, Tasya's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Deep Blue 2008, and Chairman's Reserve 2008.
Went back and forth but the winner was still the Symphony Series, it is aromatic, clean, and its fruity notes pair perfectly with Chinese food as well as on its own. It's just like biting into a juicy muscat grape, or one of those amazing green gummies, but better. This is an immensely enjoyable wine, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who dislikes it. At188 RMB a bottle, you pay for the quality but its worth the treat every once in a while.
(As a side note: the Symphony reeeaaallly reminds me of the similarly named Obsession Symphony of California's Ironstone vineyard, which is from the Symphony grape, a variety developed in 1948 at the UC Davis by cross-breeding muscat and grenache gris, and patented in 1983. Since the grape isn't grown very much, I remember a mad dash every summer in the LCBO as restaurants and consumers in the know snatched up all the cases in days.)
As the limited production of these smaller Chinese wineries mean the prices can be prohibitively high, this was the first time I tried many of the Tasya's Reserve wines, and I was surprised at the strong, earthy aromas in the Tasya's Reserve Chardonnay 2007 that carried through to the palate. Its well-balanced, has good citrus acidity and would be great with fish and grilled veggies. Actually all the wines went really well with the tapas catered by El Willy, I especially loved this wine with the smoky fish balls in tartar sauce. The Reserve Chardonnay is expensive at 218 RMB but at the mid-range of Grace's offerings.
In the value section, the Rose 2008 won. It doesn't stand out in any aspects, but the flavour is long, fresh and well-balanced, and at 60RMB a bottle, is a STEAL. Perfect for a summer aperitif.
Aside from the Symphony, the other one worthy of all its praise is the Chairman's Reserve 2008. Named "one of the best Chinese wines" recently, it is very aromatic, with a bouquet of tobacco and liquorice, and perfectly balanced tannins. But at 488RMB a pop, you had better save it for a white tablecloth occasion when you've got some abalone and a master chef on hand.
After the tasting, we were treated us to a Kun Opera performance in the room next door. The makeup took an hour to do! It's rare to see Kun opera these days, so bravo to the Grace Vineyard team for putting together a perfect afternoon.
epic weekend eating, drinking, rocking the capital
anna banana came to visit all the way from TO and we gave her the ultimate tour of the capital, hedonist style. in between the qianmens, nlgxs, and temple of heavens, there was of course sichuan, hakka, and yunan.
v is for victory
mouth-watering chicken
the one where tracey has a fat cuban in her mouth hah!
beer + pedal boat + naked old men in the lake
纸包鱼 “paper-wrapped fish"
Best vegetable dish of life. Mustard greens topped with pickled olive leaves
hutong pre-jam, gin + seabuckthorn juice = money
Eating Shanghai: Shufu and Guyi
Enough has been written about Sichuan and Hunan establishments Shufu and Guyi, Sichuan and Hunan establishments in Shanghai, that I won't add to the noise. But heres a feast for your eyes.
Shufu
酸菜豆花，silken tofu with pickled vegetables - this dish came in a pot the size of half the table, but was a big vat of disappointment. The one I remember and love from Chuanban in Beijing had a perfect balance of acidity and savouriness in the soup and a crunch in the pickled veggies to offset the silken tofu bits. This version had neither the flavour or mouthfeel and took up an unabashed amount of space on the table to boot.
鱼香肉丝, fish fragrant pork - well done
麻婆豆腐，mapo tofu - I have extremely high standards for this dish, I had my FMOT with it at the age of 3 in Chengdu, and so far nothing I've had in Beijing and Shanghai have compared to the version we made at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine.
Shufu，2F, Novel City, 133 Tianyaoqiao Road
Meal for 4: ~200RMB
Guyi
Chili Chicken- meat was dry and unflavourful. I felt like I was playing hide and seek trying to find a sliver of meat in the sea of peppers.
Fish dumplings- this was legitimately an excellent dish, Having grown up on buckets of homemade jiaozi, I was under the impression that they only worked with one filling, pork. I didn't know what to expect when biting into this but the fish meat turned out to be light and fluffy, packed with umami flavour that blended seamlessly with the sweet and spicy chili oil dressing.
Guyi- 87 Fuming Road, at Julu Road.
We didn't really eat much, but 2/3 of what we ordered was unpalatable, so I'm glad we didn't sign up for more. If you did go with a normal group and order a whole table you'd prob be around 100RMB pp.
For my next Hunan hit, I'll be heading to Hunan Xiangcun, rated highest on dianpin for flavour in the xiangcai category.
Haochi in Beijing: Yunan Weidao
This tiny joint is one of the more authentic Yunan places in town. There are just 4 tables and a wall covered with post-its from happy patrons. Pictured are salt and pepper shrimp, their specialty grilled fish, scrambled eggs and jasmine buds, egg yolk battered mushrooms, and the ubiquitous 'crossing the bridge' rice noodles with all the fixings. Everything was cheerful and under 30 rmb, highly recommended!
2 locations
1) 104 Gulou Xidajie, Dongcheng District. (131 2040 9942)
2) East of Sanlian Bookshop, Meishuguan Dongjie, Dongcheng District. (8545 5199)
Haochi in Seoul: Noryangjin Fish Market
I've been sleeping on these pics for a while. They were pretty much the only pics I took in Seoul so completely forgot.
I had these grandiose plans of making a vlog documenting my two days of bibimbap and hyper shopping. But my video production days were short-lived after Air China decided to take a royal dump on my plans and delay my flight by 7 HOURS on the way there, essentially cutting my trip in half. After finally landing, I had little desire to explore and much less to be chatty with a flip cam.
However, I did get my fill of fried stuff at the Myongdong night market. They deep fry everything in Seoul- sausage battered and covered with french fries, fish paste, rice cakes, shoes. There's also a Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme on every street corner, I don't know what they're eating to stay so skinny but it sure didn't work for me.
Anyway, I managed to get a few satisfactory shots at Noryangjin Fish Market the next day. Enjoy!
*click on a pic to see it enlarged
WORDS > Visual Wordplay
A breathtaking video about WORDS by Everynone to accompany Radiolab's latest Podcast.
Everynon is a production house based in LA and NY. They are Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercadante and Julius Metoyer III. They worked with everyone from NPR to Mediacom, and I strongly suggest going to their website and watching their productions.
"Words have the power to shape the way we think and feel. In this stunning video, filmmakers Will Hoffman and Daniel Mercadante banded visual wordplay into a moving exploration of language set to an original score by Keith Kenniff."
via WNYC Radiolab.
