First big weekend

I had noble intentions to illustrate various culturally significant insights and the differences between oriental and western culture in this blog, with witty stories.

However, I think that instead I will write about food - the most wonderful, glorious, delicious Shanghai food.

Last night I dined with Isabella (my fellow PubliMaster student) who took me to a Cantonese restaurant. She decided that this would be the best way to break-in my feeble western palate and accustom it to Shanghai dining. Little did she know that having eaten more than my own body weight in chili sauce from The Godfather kebab house in Blackburn, I can take on just about anything that comes out of any kitchen, anywhere in the world. Tofu with crab meat, roast pigeon, pak choi in a delicately flavoured sauce and a fish that was brought flapping around in a plastic bag for us to inspect before we decided to have it cooked for us. Delicious.

Tony Qi, who I will be working closely with during my time here, has very kindly taken me out and shown me various excellent bits of Shanghai today. Various bits of Shanghai where you can eat like a king, that is.

Lunch - exquisite and justifiably very famous steamed crab meat and pork dumplings, sticky rice parcels, prawn and crab balls. All served in the historic Nanxiang steamed dumpling restaurant in old Shanghai. Prepare to queue for an hour if you go at lunchtime on Saturday. Well worth the wait. The prices get higher and the queue gets shorter the higher up the restaurant you go (3 floors). So much for communism, eh?

Dinner - jelly fish (a new one for me), Taiwanese 3 cup chicken (marinated in 3 cups of stuff - no idea of what, but delicious), roast pork in sticky lovely sauce, and more delicious dumplings. All washed down with lashings of Tsing Tao beer. The restaurant was called the Seagull restaurant - part of the Seagull Hotel. Outdoor tables overlooking The Bund on the bend in the Huangpu river which divides the city East and West. Amazing views as the sun goes down and all the lights on the many skyscrapers come on one-by-one.

Tony is a connoisseur of good food. He also knows his bars and clubs and Shanghai is well stocked with both. Wine is eye-wateringly expensive in the cool bars. But in the club we went to (called Muse) there was no entrance fee and 2 Heinekens, an Evian and a cheeky large Absolut whilst I was ordering came in at a little over a tenner. Not bad. Strange place in a way - the music was pretty good downstairs but rubbish R&B upstairs. There were 2 Ferraris and a Lamborghini parked outside but some ex-pat idiots glassed one another outside the club whilst we were there. An unusual mix...