45 replies to this topic

[Daniel]

So it looks like it's that time again.I landed yesterday in Shanghai. Unfortunately, i got sick right before I left. There is nothing more annoying than flying with a head cold..Well, i am sure there are lots of things that are more annoying. We landed in Shanghai at around 2 pm.There was a slight panic as the people that were to pick us up, were not at the airport.If you read my last journal on my trip to China, I had met this guy named Jacky.He was about my age and I asked him to take me to dinner while we were in Guangzhou.  I had been traveling on my own for some time and this guy was in a similar business as me.Well it turns out, we have been talking quiet a bit since I returned and he has some business opportunities for me.  I am to be traveling for the next 10 days to visit 5 different factories.I am now on my first part of the trip. After the 14 hour flight, i got into a car and drove another 6 hours up to Yangzhou.But I feel like I am on any other business trip now. ;I stayed up the entire night before I flew and then drugged myself at the appropriate time on the plane. I landed and hit the ground running. it feels like any other business trip now. Except with really shitty television and very wonderful food.I don't feel as far away as I normally do when I come here. With my head cold,


I requested we go for some Sichuan Food:Thick gluttonous noodles with the classic Sichuan Combination of hot and a little vinegar

This was one of the better dishes of the night:



Interesting.. there were a lot of pine nuts in this dish: Little pieces of lamb



Sliced fish in spicy broth:

\


This was my favorite dish of the night.. It was little bits of chicken on the bone served with something similar if not exactly like yucca.It was served in a spicy and fatty chicken broth..

This, chinese rice wine, airborne and nyquil make for a lovely cold remedy.This dish was awesome.



Fried live shrimp on a skewer.. This is just like the little shrimp I get in chinatown. The were sweet and delicious.



Cumin lamb ribs with peanuts and peppers.. Amazing too



A little cold goose never hurt nobody



Spicy tofu:



Not a bad dinner for 4,I think it came out to something like 35 dollars:

[Daniel]

On our way to the Boonies this morning. There are these make shift little food courts all along the highway.



There is no telling what you will encounter along the highway. Here looked like a pile of moving rags:




Bread guys:



It's very mad max out there.. lots of vehicles which look homemade or just thrown together.



We have very serious work to do:



So now it was time for lunch. The Chinese are really on top of lunch. If it were up to me we would work through lunch. I love to eat, don't get me wrong but, when it comes to business, i have no time for food. I am not up for a multi course affair. I brought power bars and can soldier through..But, the guys I have encountered are very regimented. Lunch is at 12 or 1230 and they start to complain and get cranky if you don't stop working. You can certainly use this to your advantage if you are negotiating at this point. "Just give me the nickel and we can go to lunch" sort of thing.

So we are literally in the middle of nowhere. We have driven down these dirt roads through places that look like they have been hit by bombs. i am really not looking forward to eating lunch. It also scares me that we are in this rural area that has lots of farms. There are also these standing swamps where I see all these people fishing in. I am hoping that we are not eating what is being grown and fished here.. Everything is covered in this film of dust and grime.. even the vegetables.

We walk into this huge empty building and there is nothing indicating it's a restaurant. We notice this shady sort of pile of dishes with this crude hose sticking out of a wall. I am shaking my head, as I am getting really scared. We go upstairs and sit in this empty room with a lazy susan. I have no idea we are in for.


You know, the usual.. More cold goose:




Green Bean and Soy Beans:

This was delicious.




Thin sliced raw cucumber marinated with raw garlic:



This dish was super spicy and really delicious. some sort of fish steaks with tiny little shrimp. The whole time i am praying, please don't let this be a "locally caught fish"




Eggs with jalapeños and some sort of yellow sauce.. it was not a curry ,it could have been just an egg yolk sauce.. i have a cold so the subtle flavors get lost on me:



Duck Soup.. A really rich and gelatinous broth. There is sliced radish in it. A wonderful soup.. It goes really well with the rice. The rice also goes really well with the sauce from the fish. And it all goes really well with the 2 22 ounces of beer i drank.. We were also having a spicy pepper eating contest with the peppers from the fish bowl. They were trying to get me to eat peppers as I have a cold. Drinking beer and eating hot peppers happens to be two of my very best talents, so I was in luck.



Some "local" vegetable.. The red sauce is the natural run off from the greens.. served with garlic.. this was FANTASTIC! Though, everyone tells you, when going to China,do not eat vegetables like this.. I have stopped listening to the warning years ago. I am glad i did with this one.




Big old bowl of Yangzhou fried rice: This went well with everything.. This will be my second serving of fried rice for the day.. We had a different version for dinner as well.



I am happy i used the restroom after lunch. This is actually one of the better bathrooms i have encountered in the past couple of days. Having a standard toilet automatically puts it in the top of the pile. However, the urinal was not connected to anything. So, as i am standing in front of the urinal doing my biz.I hear the dripping sound.. The damn thing doesn't connect to anything and it goes from the unrinal to the floor.. So, the entire floor is covered in urine. no drain, no sign, no nothing. I am not the first person to do this, it must have been going on for weeks. a bucket would have been an improvement.



This is how the dishes are done.. So little dude squats down and uses this dirty hose with no soap and rinses the dishes with dirty water. I am assuming that bowl of red water was where our vegetables were also rinsed or soaked or whatever. The water we are not allowed to drink, or open our mouths when we shower or brush our teeth with. I don't know how I did not get sick but, I don't want to know. There is always a 2 hour time period where every slight motion in my stomach makes me really nervous. I am always kind of waiting to get sick but, so far, so good. i am knocking on this fake wood desk as we speak.



This is where your teddy bears come from:

[Daniel]

So this was tonight's dinner:

We started with some spicy duck web:



Shredded bean curd: In a sesame oil



Spicy pig stomach: served with some chinese vinegar.






This is interesting.. It was beef with noodles in a Coconut Broth. I asked my guy if this was Chinese and he was pretty adamant about saying yes. Though, these guys are pretty nationalistic. There was some sort of pause during the conversation when I was telling them that Dodge was an American Company and Henry Ford invented the car. I think they were like, yeh, right, let this stupid American think they invented everything.





Pork Buns: Interesting twist.. steamed and then browned on the bottom with sesame seeds:





More of the reddish green greens.



Beijing Duck: It was not the best but, it was not bad. Crispy skin, juicy meat, what's not to like.





Sliced fish with fresh bamboo.. One thing I missed about Chinese Cuisine in China is the access to Fresh Bamboo.. Nothing beats it, it is so awesome.



Everyone full yet?

But wait, there's more:

Clear rice noodle with crab.. The crab was cooked in the noodles in such a way that much of the flavor of the crab was imparted in the noodles. Kind of like a crab rice. there is also mushrooms in the sauce. Crab meat was wonderful.. i love dipping crab into the vinegar.





More duck soup. Lots of duck soup.. I can't still believe i am sick. I have eaten close to 8 bowls of soup in the last two days.



This was one of the more complete Yangzhou rices I have had so far. Little pieces of thousand year old eggs, little shrimp, bits of eggs, peas, carrots, some onions.. Delicious. Best fried rice I have had by a long shot. The egg was ribboned through out the dish. I don't know how they could have done that.



All of this and 10 beers. 60 dollars U.S

[Sneakeater]

I don't know how to tell you this, but the car was invented by French and German guys.

Henry Ford invented mass production of the car.

[Suzanne F]

I don't know how to tell you this, but the car was invented by French and German guys.

Henry Ford invented mass production of the car.

Well, yeah, but the Chinese seem to have invented the supermass production of the Teddy bear.

[Sneakeater]

And we get these great great threads from Daniel as a result.

[Daniel]

I don't know how to tell you this, but the car was invented by French and German guys.

Henry Ford invented mass production of the car.

At least I am smart enough to know, there is a lot i don't know, or smart enough not to let things go! Thanks for reading. And thank you Pierre Peugot for all of your hard work and forward thinking.

Headed out this morning down to Nanjing. Meeting with this new factory today. Always a little scary relying on a new person to be in charge of your travel and lodging. Worse comes to worse, we can stay in Yangzhou for our next set of appointments in a couple of days.

[Orik]

Some great looking food.


Last time in Mexico we were following the usual procedures with the water (don't drink, don't even brush your teeth) for a month until we learned the city was doing some infrastructure work and in the meantime feeding our water tank with purified water.

[Daniel]

Today started out with me having the hotel breakfast buffet at 6 o'clock in the morning. I had the typical boa, soup with noodles, spinach, dried shrimp, and chiles, a couple of egg rolls, knife cut noodles, some hot tea and some fried rice. It was enough for me to eat and go back to bed. I had a meeting in my hotel lobby at 930 am and then i was to be picked up and taken to Nanjing City. Another internet meeting where the timing worked really well. A nice relief.

We got picked up and were driven to another factory. This was not the best meeting.. The lady was cold and unwelcoming. Where they usually roll out the red carpet for me, this was some shnazzy company and they could really care less about me. When we arrive, she asked if we were hungry. I said sure, she offered cheeseburgers. i said, i prefer Chinese Food..

Fried rice with egg, ice cold spinach soup.. Fried rice was actually delicious.



But yeh, the building was beautiful, they had a full staff of people, and it was just very high end.. There is a reason why I go into the boonies. I don't want to pay for people's Flag Poles, sort of speak. Despite the fact that they were in this gorgeous building, all the workers were sitting in these beautiful rooms with the lights off. We asked them why is everyone working in the dark. they reply, well, the lights are very expensive so, we keep the lights off.. Hmm.. interesting concept, you pay for a fancy building but, you can't afford to keep the lights on. Needless to say, i think they were expecting me to pay for them to turn on their lights with one order as they were stupidly expensive.

So after our meeting, we were off to our hotel..

This is quiet a beautiful hotel..It is located in what I can only guess is the Times Square of Nanjing.. The jingling hotel.. iT's a 35 story hotel and its super high end. The staff is white glove, the rooms are super modern with all the modern conveniences. There is even a little admirals club where you can go and have cocktails and snacks for free.

Here is my room:

Huge Flat screen:



Nice big bed with super soft down pillows. the bed is still hard but, pillows are soft. I like this combo:



That window closes with blinds and also opens so you can see into the bathroom for some reason..





Bathroom- They even give you two toilet paper dispensers. that is over the top excess.



On the 9th floor they have this complimentary lounge if you get a certain level room.. I went up there and was happy to see the Johnny Walker.. I poured myself a few glasses until people started giving me bad looks. Fortunately, i am never going to see them again so, dirty looks mean nothing to me.. Especially when one has such a lovely buzz. Fortunately, there was this large Dutch looking guy who came in and help me kill the bottle and then asked for another to be opened. He was pouring himself tom collin sized glasses.





I had duck pot stickers, hot pastry with cheese and salami, bacon wrapped carrot, roasted vegetable sandwiches, pate sandwiches, and various nuts.. We stayed right before we were going to cause a spectacle and the second bottle was starting looking half full to us and perhaps half empty to the crew lording over the free stuff.



A fairly metropolitan view from our table:

[Daniel]

When I came to, i mean woke up after my nap from the Admirals club cocktail hour, it was 11 o clock at night.. Early in the day, i had asked the concierge for a recommendation for Chinese Food. He was the 4 th person I asked and the 4th person to give me the name of the same restaurant attached to the hotel. He said, there is an English menu, the food is good. There was something sketchy about every person in the hotel having the same reflex response when an American Tourist asks where to eat. I told him that we like Chinese Food and want a fun place, the concierge said, no place is going to speak Engish so, I can;t recommend a place. So, i knew we were on our own.

We hit the streets at around 11 and started walking away from the hotel.. We passed a little alley way portable restaurant spot where there were people grilling sticks and making bowls of noodles, worse comes to worse, this was going to be a good option.. We then hit up a bar for a couple of drinks while we planned our next move. After walking for some time, we came upon this place:



I love myself some hot pot





Not making the connection between the name of the restaurant and any of the ingredients we head on in.. It is now around midnight. the place is fairly busy for midnight.. No one there speaks english. What to do, you start making animal noisy and drawing things. A moo got us a some beef, a buck buck buck, got us some chicken, me drawing a shrimp on a piece of paper got us a plate of shrimp.. a random point or two got us a ham loaf and some greens.. it was all through pure luck and gestures.

I pointed on this paper and got a ham loaf and some greens:




So they bring this metal bowl to the table. At this point, i assumed it was a bowl of hot broth that they were planning on heating on a hot plate that sat on our table.. but no, they delivered a huge bowl of fred potatoes, fried lotus root, fried ginger and fried frog mixed with a spicy sichuan pepper sauce.. This was amazing.. I did not tell me fellow diner what we were eating as he enjoyed the food as chicken.. So, who was I to ruin the experience.. I am sure when he reads this blog he will know what i am talking about. Let's call this a test of his reading comprehension. But it was so good, I could have stopped here and been happy.

Such a good combo fried frogs and taters. sichuan peppercorns:



After some time of eating the bowl of frog and potatoes the raw ingredients start to arrive. We signal for them to take away the bowl of potatoes and frogs so we can start the hot pot. There were chicken wings, shrimp, greens, beef, this weird sort of ham loaf that we didn't like.. I couldn't draw or get them to understand noodles. Perhaps they didn't have any.



Tons of Sauces to choose from:


she motioned to me that this was intact that hotpot already.. I was confused. Confused until she poured this hot white liquid from a pitcher into our potato and frog bowl and turned on the heat.

The name bullfrog prince keeps coming back to me.



This girl was a saint.. The only thing I can say was, cold beer and thank you. Though, we got a long really well and were able to mesh out this whole meal. She was super helpful.



Delicious rich broth:



i love going out like this in China. Not knowing the language, kind of blowing in the breeze. Ending up somewhere new, eating things that are new, meeting some really nice people and trusting yourself in their care. 90 percent of the time, it is a good experience. People are nice and want you to be happy wherever you go. This girl was so sweet and so kind. It was a lot of fun. We didn't say many words but, we definitely had a connection. She was good people.

my first frog and potato hot pot.

[Suzanne F]

Loving this. Thank you, Daniel!

BTW: you gonna be bringing in those bunny ears?

[Sneakeater]

You THINK the "moo" got you beef.

[Daniel]

shit, in the middle of a long post and for some reason my other screen got sort of light.. all the text is a light grey and I can't highlight anything, or add the post, or type anything else.. It;s like the screen froze? can i do anything?

nope, just lost a long post.. sorry, off to start my day!

happy saturday night. it's looking to be an awesome sunday morning round here.


Greetings from the "factory for the world". looks like it's going to be another beautiful blue sky day!

[Daniel]

Well, I can't bring myself to writing up yesterday again. It wasn't a very stellar day anyway. We went to some shitty chain restaurant.There are 50 locations and it was some weird hybrid of Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

Went to a restaurant close to our showroom:a dish very familiar to customers of Grand Sichuan. Shredded potatoes with green peppers. I add a little chinese vinegar to this.





Chicken soup

We eat soup at every meal.. There is no A.C anywhere and it's hot and humid. I think today was in the 80's.. we are sitting in the sweaty heat, flies buzzing around us.. Cold beer and hot soup. Life is, well, life is still good. and so is the soup.



Shredded tofu strands, with ham, peas and pork:

These shredded tofu strands are everywhere.



Beef with peppers. A familiar dish to those Americanized Chinese Food fans.. However, the "beef" was pretty suspect. It was delicious but, like no beef I ever had in taste and texture. In order for me to sleep at night, let's just assume they have different breeds of cows here. Grass fed heritage dry aged something or other. Peppers were like shisitos except, they were all as hot as the random hot shisito pepper can be. I don't think any of them were



Sweet and sour chicken.  A good version. It was a nice change, having something so deep fried



Steamed egg and scallions. Kind of like a chow an mushi.

[Daniel]

Dinner in the hotel last night. We left our hosts as to sort of ice them a little bit. We spent the last few days with them and negotiations have hit a wall. I have spoken before about the slow negotiations here. Nothing happens quickly and you spend days fighting over pennies. Kind of annoying as so much work can be done if we just could get things done quickly. Oh well, when in Rome.

In our hotel, there are these signs in the elevators selling the food at this restaurant Tang Palace. It's a pretty restaurant, the posters are really great.

We started with Lion's Head meatballs.. These were fish balls.. Delicious. Wonderful texture, it was wonderful.



This picture does not do this dish justice. This was shredded bean curd with crab roe and meat. Chunks of crab, lots of red roe, in a beautiful crab broth. This with really lovely. Would have made an awesome spaghetti dish too.



Sizzling Pepper Steak: Beef, it can really be skipped over while you are here.




Chicken Soup- Some of the richer broth. Still working on a cold so, gotta throw in a soup:



Deep fried ribs. I don't know why I don't deep fry my ribs at home. Perhaps, I would like to live a few years longer



The star of the show. It must be crawfish season here as they are seen everywhere.. Yesterday at lunch for example, there must have been 40 orders come out of the kitchen. The give you gloves and it's a whole to do. These are sitting in chile oil with chiles. These were the best crawfish I have ever had actually. Slight hint of sesame and that awesome garlicky chile oil. Such a great preparation. I am heading to New Orleans in a couple of weeks. New Orleans better step up their game. I am hoping to hit up a few Vietnamese Restaurants while we are down there.. I am assuming there are some fun Asian Versions to look forward to.



Yangzhou Fried Rice. Besides Ham, Peas, Egg, and little Shrimp, there are little pieces of salted fish.. Another unique version. But, nothing like my favorite version. Still don't know how they added those perfect thin strips of egg to it.