My swanky Chinese grocery store

I found my favorite grocery store in Shanghai.  It's called City Super and it's in a mall.  I know that sounds weird, but malls in China are awesome.  Like "I would choose to go and hang out there even if the air quality wasn't bad" awesome.  (But it's extra awesome, because sometimes the air quality is really bad here and you have to stay inside.)

A little side note, I discovered that the breathing masks I bought at Pharmaca in Portland were woefully inadequate for filtering real pollution.  So I spent about $70 and one of the admins from the office got me a good mask with disposable filters that you remove when they turn grey (gross).  

 

#supersexyselfie

But don't worry, mom!  I promise to wear it when it's really gross out!  Like if the AQI is over 200.

This is what a nice sunny day looks like when the AQI is just over 200.  You can taste the pollution.

Side note to the side note: The Air Quality Index runs from 0 to 500 (500 is bad).  I have an app on my phone that was developed by an ex-WK'er called Airpocalypse, and it tells you the AQI for several cities in China along with cute little icons.  I've seen ratings in the mid-300s in Chengdu since I've been here.  Woof.

Okay, after that super-appetizing detour, let's get back to grocery shopping, shall we?

City Super.  It's light and bright and beautiful and full of stuff without feeling cluttered.  Sort of like IKEA.  Actually exactly like IKEA because people in China love to walk in front of you and slow down.  Just. like. IKEA.

They have gorgeous produce and including these crazy apples that are the size of a newborn baby's head and cost about $20.  I have no idea how they achieve that bi-color stencil effect.  Any theories?  Please leave them in the comments because I am curious.

And this amazing waygu beef.  I've seen beef that nice once before in person, and all that finely-marbled fat actually starts to melt and weep as the meat approaches room temperature.  If beef and butter had a love child, it would taste like these steaks.

 

Pet store?

Nope, sorry, fellas.  Seafood section.

And yes, there are turtles in the bottom left tank.

And dried sea cucumbers, which are both really scary-looking and really expensive.  

Sorry for the terrible picture.  They were behind locked glass, because that box of spiny gremlins is more than $1100.

I didn't think I would be able to find any Mexican food, but I was wrong. Unfortunately, most of it was Tostitos, Pace and Rosarita.  But there were some pickled jalapenos and some Frontera Grill salsas, so it wasn't all bad. 

They also have lots of prepared food such as a barbecued meat station, sushi area, seafood grill and deli.  And they have pre-segmented citrus fruit, which makes me think of Lobee because all she really wants in life is for someone to supreme her citrus fruit for her.  (You think I'm joking.  I am not.)

 

I also get really excited when I see Portland products here.  Even when they're Portland products I don't particularly care for.  Like Rogue beer.  Especially like a $4 Rogue beer.  I bought Tsingtao and Kirin instead.

I realize that I only took pictures of expensive oddities, but it's also full of lots of reasonably priced things that you actually want to eat.  I bought really good fuji apples, yogurt, granola, cucumbers, a wine corkscrew, beer and some lotion for under $40.

And they have cooking lessons that I need to check out.  They have a "western food" class coming up soon.  Of all the classes to take, that's not the best use of my time and money, but I'm kind of curious about what that means.  

Too bad I don't actually have a kitchen where I'm staying, or I'd be doing more grocery shopping.  But I plan to endear myself to my coworkers and set up shop in their kitchens a couple of nights a week (I say while twisting my mustache in a scheme-y way).

 

x

A study of xiao long bao (part one)

I've had a long-standing obsession with xiao long bao (soup dumplings).  They're asian, hard-to-find (in Portland) and slightly dangerous; how much more exciting could dinner be? 

Rather than dumplings in broth, xiao long bao have soup inside the dumpling.  Molten-hot, magma soup.  To eat them, you carefully pluck them up with your chopsticks, nibble a little hole towards the top of the wrapper, blow on the liquid inside, and then carefully drink the soup out of the middle and eat the dumpling. 

Watching someone eat soup dumplings is very... intimate.  Maybe that sounds weird, but watch it, and you'll know what I mean.  

I've heard that some places make gigantic soup dumplings, like the size of a burger, where the only goal is the soup inside.  For the dumpling wrapper to be strong enough to hold that much liquid, the wrapper itself is tough and doesn't taste very good.  After slurping up the insides, you discard the dumpling shell.  

Not these little dumpling babies from Lin Long Fang.  These are the size of a silver dollar, and the dumpling wrappers are delicious.  I ordered crab dumplings, and they were awesome.  I got a dozen dumplings in two steamer baskets and some vinegary, ginger dipping sauce for ¥99 (about $15).

The filling had a yellow tint.  My hypothesis is that they mixed the crab tomalley into the filling.  Tomalley is the hepatopancreas (aka guts) of the crab and hard-core crab eaters LOVE it and call it "the mustard."  I've never had enough guts (no pun intended) to scoop it out and try it when I've eaten whole crab in the past, but I liked this filling a lot.  It was very rich and "crabby."  I got some shell fragments in several of the dumplings.  I'm not sure if this was intentional for texture, but I doubt it, and I spit the shells out.  

I was worried that it would be rude to pick crab shells out of my mouth.  And I didn't have a napkin of side plate to put the shells on.  But one of the bizarre and sort-of refreshing things about being in China, is that nothing seems to be rude.  I made a little pile of spit-out crab shells, and no one seemed annoyed or irritated.  

I found the restaurant after a little research.  It's tiny and non-descript and feels very undiscovered.  It was about a two and a half mile walk from where I was staying.  Walking five miles for soup dumplings?  Well worth it.  Priorities, people.

The woman taking orders didn't speak any English, but she had a sort-of-English menu for me to look at.  I picked crab, and she wrote "99" down on a scrap of paper.  I didn't know how to order water or anything to drink, so I just drank from the water bottle I had with me.  The whole restaurant seats about 15 people, and you can watch ladies make your soup dumplings.  They are astonishingly fast for how delicate and precise the process is.  They make their own dough, cut it, roll it out, fill it and pinch it off and put it in a steamer basket.  When a basket is full, it goes back to the kitchen to be steamed, and comes out about five minutes later.  

My Shanghainese dumpling pilgrimage has just begun.  
More to come.

Lin Long Fang
10 Jianguo Dong Lu, 
near Zhaozhou Lu 
建国东路10号， 
近肇周路

Be forewarned.  Extremely amateur blogging commencing now.  (insert jazz hands here)

My goals:

• share pictures
• document my time in Shanghai
• don't embarrass myself

Two out of three isn't bad, right?