Food in Shanghai

April 22nd, 2013

Lisbon, Portugal

Song of the Day: I won't give up by Jason Mraz

Mood: Tired

Food in Shanghai

I had many great food experiences in Shanghai. While I ate some traditional Chinese food, my best memories were at foreign restaurants.

Why settle for a food pyramid when you can have a food pagoda?

Pizza Hut

DJ Busy Bee and I were starving after our adventure at the Museum of Contemporary Art and we saw a familiar restaurant: Pizza Hut! I fondly remembered personal pan pizzas from my youth and I wanted to see how Pizza Hut in China compared. In China, Pizza Hut established itself as an upscale, authentic Italian restaurant complete with commercials praising its gourmet food (similar to how Olive Garden markets itself in the US). Let's just say that American and Chinese Italian are a little different.

Of course the hostess should wear bunny ears and mad hatter hat

A ham salad came with ranch dressing

Oh wait, it's not ranch, it's mayo. Yum!

Nothing says upscale Italian quite like salmon wasabi pizza

Reconnecting with G-Unit

My favorite restaurant was going to Kota's Kitchen with my college roommate, G-Unit. It is a Beatles themed Japanese restaurant.

Besides the awesome ambiance, there was great food.

I'm not sure what everything was, but it was all delicious 

Although everything was amazing, of course the best part was reconnecting with G-Unit

What better way to follow up a Japanese restaurant in China than with chocolate mousse?

I was invited to join G-Unit and his friends for Wednesday night dinner club. I originally heard we were going to eat at Monkey Meat and was much relieved when I saw it was a Thai restaurant named Monkey and Me.

The guy in the goggles in the owner/manager

Small world moment: the girl on the far end on the left was one of G-Unit's flatmates. She went to high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma with my good friend from my dorm/summer program/badminton team. Her boyfriend (across from her) grew up in Chartres, a small town outside Paris that is home to the cathedral where my mom spends many months each year. We're going to meet up there in May.

Friends new and old