Fatty Tuesday: Homemade Enchiladas

We've been dying for good Mexican food. Yes, you can find Mexican in Shanghai, but it's fancy Mexican, in restaurants with nice tables and chairs, made by Chinese cooks. It's not good, dirty Mexican (and I mean that in the best possible way). I've been spoiled with authentic burritos and tacos and quesadillas for most of my life -- what can I say?      

So we took it upon ourselves to make enchiladas at home one evening. The challenge, yet again, was finding all of the ingredients. Here's where we went:

• Yasmin's, the butcher, for chicken (as close to organic/grain-fed/cage-free as we're going to get here)
• Avocado Lady for veggies, a jar of jalapenos, sour cream and corn tortillas (we had to buy a pack of about 50 and freeze what we didn't use)
• Enchilada sauce from City Shop for almost $4/can (there'd be outrage at home for that kind of price for a canned good!)    
• Cheese at Pines, the slightly cheaper City Shop (aka, foreigner-friendly market)

The result was so tasty, we made them again the following week.     

And we're back!

After a truly whirlwind trip -- San Francisco for a few hours, then to Los Angeles, back to SF, Shanghai for 24 hours, and finally to Ubud and Jimbaran in Bali -- we returned "home" late last week. Shanghai welcomed us back with lovely fall weather (the stifling heat is gone!) and fewer crowds due to the national holiday week. It was Mid-Autumn Festival, another holiday whose significance isn't terribly clear, but involves a specific food item (remember Dragon Boat Festival and zongzi?). This time, it was mooncakes, which sound delicious in theory (who doesn't want a cake made from the moon?), but aren't. You'll have to take my word for it.    

While on the Shanghai leg of our honeymoon, we enjoyed all of our favorites we had temporarily left behind: a crepurrito breakfast and a visit to the Avocado Lady. Somehow, we also became professional tennis fans. The 2012 Shanghai Rolex Masters is in full swing (pun intended), so we attended yesterday's matches and bought tickets to the finals next Sunday. With Federer, Murray and Djokovic set to play, we'll likely see two of these stars battle it out.  

Food in the foreground, 
a happy man in the background

Although the honeymoon will never be over ;) -- we decided to end our two-week extravaganza on a high note with dinner at Mr. & Mrs. Bund, one of Shanghai's best restaurants and certainly comparable to top offerings in San Francisco, LA, New York and Paris. We started with two Kumamoto oysters (small, plump and delicious, and hard to find in China) and seared foie gras served with pomelo -- in an ode to the appetizers served at our wedding. The third starter was a tuna tartare served with a mini scoop of mustard sorbet. For dinner, we shared (although it's technically for two people) a wagyu beef ribeye, grilled veggies, and the best mashed potatoes I've ever had (and I don't particularly like mashed potatoes). They're called Aero Mashed Potatoes and the dish tasted like a cloud -- a light, fluffy, savory cloud of goodness. Room for dessert? Of course! A tarte tatin that Mike called a game-changer and a profiterole with Nutella ice cream. You read right. Nutella ice cream. Before you judge us, you should know that we were given a very generous gift certificate to the restaurant as a wedding present, and we didn't have lunch that day. 

And now with Mike back at work, reality sets in for me as I figure out how to spend my days. Do I continue Mandarin classes? Do I find myself a job? Or do I look for other classes of interest (cooking, web development, graphic design, photo editing)? I've given myself this month to figure it out, and I'm starting by looking for work. We'll see if I can find something that makes sense for my career, for me, personally, and for us, financially.  

P.S. Stay tuned this week for more on the wedding and the 'moon.  

Have a happy weekend

What are you doing this weekend? Yes, I really want to know. 

Tomorrow morning, Mike and I will be discovering our new 'hood with Sandy, a woman I had been set up with through my mom's friend back home. Sandy has lived here for about 10 years, and now that Mike and I have moved, we're neighbors. She'll be taking us to the local bakeries and coffee shops and fruit stands, including the famous Avocado Lady about whom we've heard a lot from other expats. Her shop caters to foreigners and carries hard-to-find Western items like peanut butter, raw almonds and yes, avocados. After having some terrible guacamole at a Mexican restaurant last night, I have high hopes for the Avocado Lady.

LaterGram: Goods for sale at the Avocado Lady