Zhoumo kuaile!

We have our first visitor this weekend! A cousin of mine from LA is here in Shanghai for business and will be staying with us tonight. The plan? Food. Tonight, it's Guyi for spice-rubbed pork ribs and tomorrow morning, it's crepurritos. We'll also fit in "xiaolongboa," or soup dumplings, before he leaves for the airport. 

I can't believe I haven't told you about soup dumplings yet. Shanghai is known for them, and the dish is one of my favorites. It's essentially a pork meatball and broth wrapped in a thin flour skin. But beware of the broth. You don't want to order these when you're starving, or when you're likely to just pop one in your mouth. Trust me, I learned the hard way. To prevent burning your tongue, follow these fun instructions and you'll find that these delicious little things are so worth the extra steps --

Source: stevengoh.com via Alexis on Pinterest

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 zhoumo kuaile

What are your plans? Now that Mike has his golf clubs, he's anxious to go to the driving range and hit some balls. We'll also do the last of the unpacking, and get our art and photos up on our boring white walls. Pictures of the apartment to come, I promise. Otherwise, I'm sure a Chinese crêpurrito will be in order at some point this weekend, and we're planning on a new foodie experience with friends Saturday night. 

I recently realized that our wedding is only TWO months away, and I should probably get back into wedding mode. I gave myself the last eight weeks or so to fully immerse myself and adjust to my new life, trying to keep the wedding talk and thought to a serious minimum. But now that the day is quickly approaching, I'm freaking out a bit. But freaking out in a super happy/giddy/excited kind of way.    

What wedding diet?

What did you do this weekend? We spent our time eating (what's new?) and exploring. Friday night, we tried Guyi, a Hunan restaurant not too far from our place. Hunan usually means spicy, but in this case, it was a bit of spice and a lot of taste. We ordered sauteed eggplant and string beans, fried fish in some kind of sweet red sauce (a dish Mike has had before and swears by), and sweet and sour beef. A few things to note before I move on:

1. Most restaurant menus in Shanghai are ten to 20 pages long. 
2. Thankfully, almost all of them have pictures; some of them have funny translations. 
3. It's no wonder that they may be out of what you order (out of 100+ options, they have to run out of a few items on some nights). 
4. Food comes out almost instantly. "How is this possible," you ask? I think I'd prefer not to know. Let's move on.  

After we started on our eggplant dish (delicious, by the way), a waitress approached Mike and told him they didn't have the beef; we ordered ribs instead. As we waited for our next two dishes, the waitress again came to our table to tell us that they didn't have the fish. Taken off guard by the fact that two out of our three dishes were no longer options, Mike quickly ordered "pine nut, rice cake and beef dice." It's always fun to see what will actually come out! Moments later, we were served the ribs (rubbed with a dry mixture of chili, garlic, cumin and other spices) and the "dice" dish -- which we know as lettuce wraps. The food was fantastic, and in the end, we were happy with what we ended up having.  

Saturday was Bastille Day; French food required. We ended up at Brasserie La Fourchette. And even though it was twice the price, the food was equally as good: steak tartare (yes, that's raw meat; yes, we're still alive and well), artichokes with blue cheese and a touch of olive tapenade, pork belly and duck confit. In case you're worried I won't fit into my wedding dress, these were small plates. Vive la France! 

And I've saved the food highlight of the weekend for last -- what I call Chinese crêpurritos. As we explored the neighborhood Saturday morning, picking up a few fruits and veggies from the Avocado Lady, we stopped by the "Crêpurrito Lady." She is a one-woman show, standing behind a large, circular hot plate that looks like the same one used to make crêpes. After covering the hot plate in a thin layer of dough (just as you would if you're making a crêpe), she cracks an egg on top of the dough and throws on a mixture of green onion, cilantro and diced pickled something. She folds it in half and brushes on a layer of thick plum sauce. Before folding it again, she adds a large piece of fried dough, then gives the whole thing a karate chop (I kid you not) and cuts it in half. Each bite is a harmony of flavors and consistencies. For about sixty cents, it's an awesome little breakfast (and a very decent substitute for the breakfast burritos we miss so much).