ISpyShanghai

(forgot to bring my camera today)

One of the Chinese guys I work with spent 6 months at our UK office. He complained that everyone ate sandwiches all of the time, which I thought was a bit rich coming from a country that’s been eating rice three times a day for 5,000 years.

I’m beginning to see what he means though, here’s the schedule at our place:

9:30am Breakfast sandwich van arrives. Has hot bacon & mushroom sandwiches. Packets of brown sauce 5p extra.

10:20am Second sandwich van arrives. Selection of cold lunchtime sandwiches is apparently much better, it’s the choice of the discerning luncher.

Midday Everyone sets off to local supermarket which has a wide range of sandwiches and wraps (nobody buys the wraps).

12:40pm Lunchtime sandwich van arrives.

I’m having couscous in protest.

So yes, I’m writing this from my desk in Manchester where I can gaze out on a rolling green field of English countryside.

It’s an inspiring sight- sunbeams are poking out from between fluffy rolling crowds and a small flock of Magpies are picking over the corpse of a smaller bird.

And just like those Magpies (you’ll enjoy this segueway, it’s absolutely seamless) I too take shiny objects from other people. In particular two pairs of two equally blinged out sandals from two different sources.

The first one is from Karyn Tan:

Karyn claims that although she took the photo on the train in Singapore (presumably whilst not chewing gum) the wearer was “unmistakeably Chinese” due to her long flowing Qiapo, book of Tang dynasty poetry and snack bag of spicy Duck beaks*.
 
The next photo was taken be Dr C Dingle PHd from a dark and dystopian vision of the future where oil is more precious than gold and packs of wild dogs roam the streets feeding on the dead and the defenseless.
 

“I like this ones, they are prety” he writes. Indeed they are Doctor Dingle, indeed they are.

*or the accent. It was the accent.

I’m on my summer holidays now, enjoying fish’n'chips’n'youtube. I won’t be posting so often, perhaps you could fill the hole in your life by staring at the image below.

Hypnotic isn’t it?

Well just after stoking a raging inferno of comment fire on the merits of Italian restaurants in Shanghai, this delivery menu landed on my desk.

I’m guessing they didn’t fly a top pizza chef in from Tuscany to come up with the “Abseriction Orchard”, and I do wonder how many other ingredients they tried alongside “Meat Gut” before they decided that pineapple was just the ticket.

The potato special sounds particularly insipid

It sounds so bad that it would be worth trying- sadly though they only deliver to Pudong.

If anyone in the ‘Dong is feeling brave, I’d love to hear what these things taste like. In fact I DOUBLE DARE YOU.

“Share My Way” Pizza

tel: 5844363 (open 10am-10pm)

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# 2 In a series of the business cards in my wallet.

Who? Da Marco

What? Italian Restaurant

Where? Inside a block of apartments, Jiangsu Lu (one stop from Jing-An)

Metropark Service Apartments
103 Dong Zhu An Bang Lu, Changning
东诸安浜路103号京华酒店公寓内(镇宁路江苏路间)
tel: 021 62104495

Why? The pizza here- blue cheese and sausage flavour, is great. Normally I cannot be swayed from the pizza topping that Jesus would choose (Tuna & Mushroom) but I make an exception here.

All of the other stuff I’ve eaten- seafood platters, unusual salads, umm little breadsticks- were solid tasty Italian food too. The wine is totally reasonably priced, and two people can eat there for 300RMB, which is more than you can say for most good western restaurants in town.

The deserts are crap, but they’re Italians so what can you do?

And…If you arrive early with a booking and your table isn’t ready, they gave you a glass of Prosecco at the bar.

If you turn up without a booking and there are no tables ready, they give you a glass of Prosecco and a stern telling off.