It sounds awfully pretentious here’s the text from the website:

Rock Salt 7 Stars Sea Bass, Crushed Urchin & Sea-Water Lime Fizz
Ocean Waves – Seagull and Whales in Love – Scent of Seaweed
Pacific Breeze – Vaporized Iodine Water – Blue Lights

But on the other hand the entire set-up sounds really intriguing. Ten seats every night – Tuesday – Saturday. 2000 RMB per dinner. Meet at an appointed place and then be drive to the dinner. A total immersion experience. So, of course, I put down my deposit yesterday for a dinner at Mr and Mrs Bund and got this “boarding pass” – it’s pretty cool.

And then you need to fill in an informational questionnaire on the website including . . . what handedness you are? Weird. Especially since I am left handed.

Anyways, Ultraviolet opens tomorrow – and my seating is for June 9th – so more to come!

I, of course, immediately dismissed his opinion. I mean, sure, he’s a fluent Chinese speaker and he’s lived for years in Taipei, Beijing and Shanghai – but Cantonese food and specifically Cantonese food in Hong Kong? What did he know? Pfft.
So I continued to go to Hong Kong and he continued to say “you gotta go to this place on Ship Street and get the chicken” and I continued to ignore him to go instead to my favorites and hang out with my friends.

However, I was down there (again!) this weekend – over the May Holiday, and I was meeting up with Wee Ling for dinner on a Monday night . . .and I actually couldn’t figure out a place to go.

So a couple of texts to CP, and he had no idea what the restaurant was called, but some searching on OpenRice revealed – a ha! Wing Hing Restaurant.

An aside here – in the ten years since I’ve left Hong Kong, characters of micro-neighborhoods have shifted. Wanchai has become a much cooler place, with restaurants and bars and nice boutiques lining the likes of Star Street and Ship Street. In fact, up and down Ship Street is a whole row of nice Western restaurants. Lan Kwai Fong, on the other hand, seems to have inherited the old Wanchai crowd. Loud, drunk, in the street, sloppy. While the old Lan Kwai Fong banker crowd seems to have moved up the hill to Wyndham Street and there’s now a lot more people in SoHo/Mid-Levels around Staunton Street/the Escalator than I remember.

Anyways, Wee Ling and I agreed on going to dinner at Wing Hing and boy are we glad we did.

First, shirmp and eggs. One of my favorite Chinese comfort foods, Wing Hing does a particularly nice version of this, with the right mix of runny egg and dry egg and GIANT shrimp.

Then some water spinach in soup with conpoy (dried scallops) and then beef brisket curry (which was very average)

Finally the star: spring oil chicken. And it was indeed, excellent, as CP had mentioned all those years ago.

There was a lot of other dishes to try – and while I’m not sure I’d come back every time I’m in HK, I would definitely return especially for the eggs and the chicken. The razor clams looked good too.

Wing Hing Restaurant
G/F-1/F, Pao Yip Buildling, 7 Ship Street, Wan Chai Hong Kong
2866 7299

Damage – about 250 HKD for 2 people.

Guangzhou gets a short shrift from expats, guidebook writers, tourists, and visitors to China. I think its mostly justified, as Guangzhou can be described as dirty, polluted, hot, crowded and basically a disheveled poor country mouse cousin to its Cantonese sister Hong Kong just two hours away, and obviously not the cultural center that Beijing is, nor the commerce center that Shanghai is – and its not even a window on the brand new China like its close neighbor to the South Shenzhen is . . . so why do I feel the way about Guangzhou that I do?

I think the story starts 15 years ago when I lived near Guangzhou, teaching at Pei Zheng Commercial College and Guangzhou was our monthly McDonald’s and supplies run. But Guangzhou 1997 was very different than Guangzhou 2012 now – back then the Tianhe district was almost a suburb, with only the football stadium, book city, the brand new Teem Mall and the even newer east railway station. Nowadays the Tianhe to Zhujiang New Town corridor is where I’ve spent my last 5 visits – when 15 years ago, this corridor didn’t exist. And the Tai Koo Hui Shopping mall is nicer than any shopping mall in Hong Kong or Shanghai or Beijing. It is very nice.

As for what I like about Guangzhou itself, I’m not sure how to describe it. Its modern China in one sense, but I think the pace of life is much slower than Beijing and Shanghai. The sub-tropical weather and preponderance of short wearing makes it feel a lot more laid back. And while the city is near HK, it has its own distinctive Cantonese culture. I also happen to think that Guangzhou is the most tolerant city towards outsiders in China. While you can’t go five minutes in Shanghai without locals complaining about ‘waidi ren’ I have found the Guangzhou natives to be pretty welcoming of outsiders – foreigners and non-Cantonese alike. I’ve noticed that while both Shanghainese and Cantonese are very proud of their respective dialects, it feels to me like Shanghainese use their dialect as a wall between themselves and outsiders and as a identifier of who is really Shanghainese, the Cantonese teach outsiders Cantonese and anyone living there for more than a year has at least working relationship with listening in Cantonese.

I’m not recommending people move there, nor am I moving there myself – but I just wanted to defend a city which I think gets a short shrift.

The mac and cheese I’ve talked about before, but the steak sandwiches are new.

My co-worker Suzette, who hosted the barbecue, had just recently come back from a month in South America and had brought back lots of powders (not that kind) and spices. So using a combination of the paprika mix that Suzette brought back and some local herbs (not that kind), I made South American steak sandwiches. Starting with a baguette, we grilled the steak which I had rubbed with chili powder and sea salt, and then made a sandwich with goat cheese and roasted corn and pepper salsa topped with chimichurri.

What is chimichurri you ask? Its a parsley and garlic based sauce from Argentina – I made mine with a cup of parsley, 6 cloves of garlic, a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar, a quarter cup of olive oil, a spice mix of paprika, dried coriander, a couple leaves of fresh oregano, sea salt and the juice and zest of 1 lemon – all of which was dumped into a food processor and ground into a paste. The roasted corn and pepper salsa was made (strangely enough) of over roasted corn, onion, lime juice, salt and fire roasted red bell pepper.

Hope you have a good barbecue season!

But a few weeks back I went with a friend to Pelham’s at the Waldorf Astoria here in Shanghai. The Waldorf is a pretty prestigious address, especially as there are only two in the world right now.

Several restaurant weeks ago, I went to the Grand Brasserie and was slightly disappointed, but this time I was able to book Pelham’s which is the Waldorf’s signature restaurant and was excited to have a high end meal from one of the best hotels in the city.

We started with an amuse bouche – oyster cream, two types of caviar with wasabi foam. While foam is very played out nowadays, this was very well done and refreshing.

@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai by [Terence], on Flickr”>@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai”>

Here was the menu for the night:

@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai by [Terence], on Flickr”>@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai”>

To save the suspense about a meal 3 weeks ago, the foie gras and the dessert were delicious, and surprising in their flavor. Excellent bookends to the turbot and the beef. The turbot and the beef? Well, they weren’t bad per se, but honestly for the signature restaurant for the Waldorf in Shanghai, I expect something more than ordinary executed well. There was no excitement in the presentation or the flavors – lemon for the white fish, burgundy sauce for the fatty beef. They were fine, and in most other restaurants in Shanghai, I’d even say they were good, but my expectations for Pelham’s were much higher, so in all honesty, I was as thrilled with the meal as I would’ve been had it be served anywhere else.

Foie Gras

@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai by [Terence], on Flickr”>@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai”>

Turbot

@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai by [Terence], on Flickr”>@ Pelham’s Waldorf Astoria Shanghai”>

Beef – this was ordinary. But the mashed potatoes? Etherial. Almost Joel Rubechon good.

The after 8 mint dessert – this was excellent and exactly replicated the taste of the After Eight dinner mint.

So what was the verdict? Well, I can’t really judge Pelham’s based off of restaurant week, because with the reduced prices, I don’t know if I was getting the true Pelham’s experience. I do know that compared to other high end meals – for example the Joel Rubechon meal I liked to, it fell well short, but on the other hand it was 1/3 the price, so that obviously comes into play.

I do know this – that’s three Shanghai Restaurant Week meals in a row which have been meh. I think maybe I’ll just go ahead and try the restaurants at full price going forward, well, unless I can get in at the Peninsula’s restaurants (Sir Ellys!) next time.

It wasn’t as far out as the Smart Shanghai article makes it out to be, but it is really really dusty and dark. Bring gloves and a flashlight. Also, don’t wear anything nice.

The place? Well, its a warehouse filled with loads and loads of . . . junk. But some of it could be really cool, salvageable junk – especially if you like things like older wooden tables, wooden trunks, curios and random remnants of Shanghai’s recent past.

If my apartment wasn’t already furnished, and if I didn’t already have too many things – there was a veritable treasure trove of apartment or house decoration to be had. Especially since the friendly staff working there will help you paint and restore your purchases to an acceptable level.

Photos after the jump

What is this? I don’t even . . .

Chairs

That’s a knife.

No, this isn’t a complaint about living in Shanghai or China, but rather – CONCERT! Yes, New York indie-pop-shoegaze band The Pains of Being Pure of Heart came through Shanghai as a preview of this year’s Jue! Festival and played in Shanghai at Mao Livehouse

The opening band was one of my favorite Shanghai bands – Boys Climbing Ropes, whom I’ve written about many times on here. They played a lot of new tunes which hopefully means a new album sometime soon. I didn’t recognize any of their songs except for “Socially Awkward” – so completely new material – at least to me.

Xiao Punk and Jordan

Then it was time for Pains of Being Pure of Heart. Reading a lot of the online chatter, a lot of people were mentioning “My Bloody Valentine” or shoegaze/noise-pop. But me, I hear a lot of Velocity Girl in their music.

Set-list

It reads:
This Love is Fucking Right
Belong
Higher Than the Stars
The Tenure Itch
//////////////////////////
Heart in Your Heartbreak
Say No to Love
Falling Over
//////////////////////////
Come Saturday
Young Adult Fiction
A Teenager in Love
//////////////////////////
Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
================================
Contender
My Terrible Friend
Everything With You
Strange

Not really too much to say about the show – Pains were really great to see live. And up close. and for relatively cheap (120 RMB for pre-sale tickets – that’s like $18). One funny note was that Chinese American Peggy Wang, the keyboardist, got on the mic to greet the crowd in Chinese. She said “I’m happy to come to Shanghai. This is my first time. My Mandarin is really bad, I’ve been in the US too long” – her accent wasn’t great, but it was perfectly understandable.

Pains Rocking Shanghai

Great crowd

Next up will be Death Cab for Cutie, also here for the Jue Festival, on Friday!

But I have a personal connection to the newly crowned King of New York – when he was in Shanghai last summer, visiting his ancestral home of Pinghu, I was lucky enough to be the NBA staffer assigned to look after him and his family that weekend.

It’s difficult to really gauge someone’s personality whom you’ve only met through limited exposure – and NBA players doubly so. But based on my limited exposure to him, he’s got a really good head on his shoulders, works really hard and regardless if he continues to put up dominating NBA numbers or normalize into a regular NBA player, he’s got the right mentality for it.

The other thing I thought was interesting is just how normal a kid he really was. Instead of it feeling like a work/player babysitting assignment, it felt like my mom called me up and asked me to take some friends of hers out in Shanghai. One quick anecdote, when we were walking along the Pudong side of the Pujiang River, Jeremy and his little brother Joseph bought some lasers being sold by the tourist vendors. And in the car on the way back to their hotel, they were shining the lasers all around and at buildings and other cars and their mom went “Jeremy! Joesph! Stop shining lasers!”

Here’s some photos from a photo shoot Jeremy did with Inside Stuff magazine – obviously the Harvard and basketball story resonated very deeply with the Chinese media.

I hope the Linsanity continues!

So aside from craving all the Japanese food to be had in Japan, I landed in Narita with an odd desire for SPAM Musubi and Loco Moco. And what do you know – in Shibuya, there’s a branch of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. (In actuality, I ran across three separate Hawaiian restaurants in the Shibuya/Ometesando/Harajuku corridor alone).

So I stopped by for a plate lunch.

L&L Hawaiian facade – right next to Tokyu Hands (best store in the world)

SPAM – with pictured musubi on the label

Interior shot

Loco Moco and No Reservations on the iPad

SPAM Musubi

So was it any good? Well, I’m not sure good is the right word for it. A Hawaiian plate lunch, by nature, is salty, filling comfort food. For example, the loco moco I ordered is a hamburger patty, covered in gravy and sunny side up eggs served over rice. Its bachelor chow. Tasty – but I’m not sure other people would really enjoy it. Maybe Hawaiians and Hawaiian obsessed Japanese. As for me, I did enjoy it, but I think that’s partially because I was tuned into Hawaii after watching half of season 2 of Hawaii Five-0 AND the No Reservations episode.

L&L Hawaiian BBQ
Japan
Shibuya (Tokyo, Japan)
12-12 Udagawa-cho
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0042 Japan
Phone: +81-3-3476-1941
Next to Tokyu Hands

First off, Tokyo. Returned to my favorite ramen place in the entire world, So Kan To.

I don’t think I really need to talk again about the attention to detail to making a simple pork broth noodle soup – I mean there’s entire movies which state it more eloquently than I can in my simple blog. But the pork toru buta ramen is reason enough to move to Tokyo.

Of course, some katsu-don was eaten.

Cyndi Lauper is coming! (to Japan)

It was SNOWING in Tokyo

Then we headed up to Nagano – Hakuba where it was snowing even more!

Evan at lunch

The water was delicious.

The Japanese face mask – very useful when it was snowing.

Then we had some yakitori – which was amazing

And then the second night, we had an amazing chanko-nabe meal. That’s right sumo wrestler food. This was so unbelievably tasty, and yet an under-represented portion of Japanese cuisine. I mean I had only heard of it via Tony Bourdain’s book – but I’ve never seen a chanko-nabe restaurant outside of Japan, but now I’ll be on the look-out. It’s basically Japanese hot-pot, with a heavy focus on vegetables, chicken and more vegetables. Then the post-cooking broth is used to make soba and the diner finishes off with a big bowl of soba noodles. During a sumo tournament, wrestlers only eat it with chicken, but since neither Evan nor I were in line to complete in a sumo tournament, there were also pork meatballs.

More snow.

A return to Tokyo meant a return to Hina Sushi as well as Komen for more ramen.

Not really a whole lot of conclusions to draw except how much I enjoy Japan!