Food in Shanghai

Spent the Chinese new year at Shanghai.. it was pretty quiet up there, different from previous years, the city was jam packed with tourists and shops were all opened. This year all the shops are not opened until the fourth day of the new year, probably because of the low business activities owners are unwilling to pay overtime during the holidays, and for some reason all the locals have fled to somewhere else leaving the place to the tourists form inland.

There's nothing much to do in Shanghai except to eat..lucky me the best ones still open during the holiday season.

1st meal at the Jade Garden. Dishes I love is the "wai san" fritters which taste almost like french fries, "lion head" with minced meat that melt in your mouth, and fried rice blocks.

Another dinner at the Tang Dynasty. Guess what's inside the basket dish...

is fried sesame dumplings and fried corns.. very nice indeed.

My favorite noodle place in Shanghai 吴越人家.

Best xiaolunbao in old town... i can finish more than a basket myself...

With crab meat inside.. have to say the amount of crab meat has diminished significantly...probably bc of hiking raw material costs..
The place may not be well-known to outsiders... Really really the best fried dumplings 小扬生煎. I wonder how they make the meat so juicy and sweet, the skin is super thin, even thinner than that of xiaolunbao, and broth burst out the second you bite into it.... rmb4.5 for 4 pieces.. I can eat that for lunch everyday if I am working in shanghai...

Marxism

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism" Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

No doubt that communism is not the path one should pursue... but capitalism does extrapolate the extent of greed and selfishness among humankind.. exemplified by the notorious 18bn wall street bonus payments. I wonder what will happen to US next? It is doubtful that obama stimulus package will give immediate resolution to the economic crisis, looking at the daily headlines of enormous job cuts among US companies, it is obvious that unemployment rate can shoot up to 10%. The proposed infrastructure projects will not be starting in the next 18 months; the tax cuts and subsidies to the unemployed will likely make them more unwilling to work.. what we see is sagging global demand is weighing down all industries and different from China whose government is still relatively wealthy US is now like a fallen angle with broken credits and depreciating dollar.. I wonder how they come up with the 800bn, and I wonder whether their investment will yield more than their interests in debt, and I wonder whether the confluence of all the political and economic issues will shake up social unrest... we don't need to go through the physical act of war for the definition of world war, the consequence of financial crisis is creating more damage, stemming from the ridiculous reasons of reckless spending and capitalism.

Cookies fantasia

I suddenly had the urge to make cookies in the recent weeks. Cookies just like muffins are very easy to make, making the dough is just a matter of combination of ingredients. The basic of butter, flavor, egg yolk, and sugar, with an added twist to spice up the characters. It doesn't really require much techniques to produce decent products, with additional care and creativity, you can create something personal and exceptional.

Three kinds of cookies in one day, from left to right, almond chocolate, hazelnut, and chocolate mix with vanilla flavor.

I tried something different yesterday, mixing green tea flavor with chocolate. surprisingly it tastes better than the plain one.. simply because the green tea dissolves the greasiness of butter and goes well with chocolate. It is easy to eat a dozen of them because of the lightness... perfect for the weekend afternoon with your own cup of black coffee.

Luncheons....

I always enjoy lazy lunching during the weekends as the perfect way to unwind and diverge attention. After five days of intensive working and eating at the desk in front of the computer...it gives a peaceful mind to spend 3 hours on a scrumptious lunch in a comfy restaurant. There are people who rather party late at night and wake up the next day at 1pm and have greasy fast food to relieve their hung over...I don't get the idea of crazy party as one will feel lonelier than ever after drowning themselves with alcohol and unleashing the inner self for a night. If not working, I like my weekend to be chill and slow, lunching at a cosy restaurant after tennis in early morning..in solitude or hanging out with friends..is a better way to prepare for another week of intensive work.

Lunched at the agnes b cafe in IFC, really like the atmosphere and food.



Randomly went to macau for the weekend..I didn't really have particularly good experience with restaurants in macau in the past. I often wonder why people keep mentioning how good the food is there, this one A Lorcha exceeded my expectation. We had pig knuckles, charcoal grilled chicken, spicy crab, dry salted cod, grilled prawns. I really like the pig dish, meat is super tender and the sauce goes well with rice.



Lord Stow's Egg Tarts. Tasty egg tarts with flaky puff pastry, very gummy and not too sweet.

2009

I did my new year resolution last year.. some has materialized and some has not.. and I refused to make a list this year, partly because I don't want to put a timeline for what I want to complete in my life..and partly because I don't want to stress myself out on what I am targeting for the year.

This year is going to be rocky.. for the industry that I am working in.. we are going to experience a lot of up and down, as we are experiencing it emotionally. Hopefully me and my friends are capable of handling the volatility, either staying in the job, finding a new one, staying in business, finding new businesses, or making good performances. We all need a certain amount of luck this year, and live through this year riding into a better '10.

Funny enough we are all expecting a massive layoffs in 1Q this year, veto the idea of recovery in 2Q, people ask whether they should be buying properties now but i question why not selling...it is a mismatch of wisdom of us in finance vs. the outside world. Why are people outside of finance are still so optimistic about the near term prospect? the iceberg is still there.. we crashed into one but there are more ahead of us.

My wish list for the year: travel more (location undisclosed), better time management for the amt of things i want to complete this year, stay in business, keep close friends closer, mastering riding and tennis.

Not a bad 08 in hindsight, hopefully not a bad 09 for me.