Eating In Shanghai

Hard to believe I'm back already, the month flew by. It was great being in China! Sightseeing during the day, then cooking dinner and watching Mad Men. The food was great there and cheap. Stayed by the Portman Ritz Carlton, the Hotel where celebrities and politicians stay at. The Hotel itself was part of a big complex catering to visiters and ex pats, with a Tony Roma's and California pizza kitchen (never went), a franchise of the french bakery Paul (went twice) a Starbucks, but those are everywhere in China (went often) and a grocery store in the basement (City Fresh) where a box of cereal would set you back 10 or 12 bucks but they also had great food, fish and vegetables, all pretty cheap. I cooked often and we ate out often too, which was great and much cheaper to do than here in NYC. The street food was amazing, steamed buns and soup dumplings were available every couple of blocks, 4 dumplings for 75c, a steamed bun with greens and tofu was about 15c and whenever I would pass one of these stalls I invariably bought something....all delicious! If you have ever had soup dumplings you know how amazing they are, inside is a ball of meat and hot soup...if you ever wondered how they are made....they put some gelatin in with the meat and when they are heated the gelatin becomes sticky liquid soup. You nibble a bit off, slurp up the soup and eat the rest, although there was a place in a tourist mall in the YuYuan garden complex that had an alternative way to eat them....