hai di lao

i dedicate this post to hai di lao. the best hot pot restaurant of all time. i take that back. the best restaurant of all time. wild claim huh? see for yourself.

1. hai di lao is conveniently located in many high traffic areas, some of which walking distance from my house and my office. plus.

2. it is clean and comfortable (though the menu is not in english nor are there pictures to point to). the bathroom is clean and normal with abundance of toliet paper and for those more old school, a couple of throwback toliets in the mix aka holes in the ground. my judgement of an establishment often relies on the bathroom experience. i approve.

3. the service. omg the service. they even try to speak english to me though i try to order in chinese. and they attend to your EVERY need...sometimes you don't even realize it's a need until they tend to it.
-you need a refill, they sense it before you take your last sip and run over to fill it
-you have your jacket on the back of your seat, they will cover it for you so it doesnt get dirty or smell too much from all the spurting hot pot juices
-you wear a nice shirt and don't want to get it dirty, they bring you an apron (that appropriately says something a bit funnier than 'i hope you're hungry')
-you wear your hair down, they bring you a hair tie without asking
-you have dirty hands when bringing said hair tie, they will put your hair up for you
-you wear glasses, they bring you a piece of cloth to clean your glasses when they get foggy due to hot pot steam
-you are chinese and keep your cell phone out everywhere, they bring you a mini plastic bag for your cell phone...which still allows you to use your touch screen technology while protected
-you express liking something a lot, they bring you more or some to take home

4. they have noodle homeboys. they wear track suits. and they make homemade noodles. and they dance. like break dance. with your noodles. amazing art form. i do not have any photos bc i was drooling a little too much and then the plastic on my cell phone case got wet and it just didnt happen.

5. the sauce bar. i have only known the sauce 'bar' aka table of basic sauces at quickly in nyc but this is beyond.

6. large facilities. the place is huge and seats many many people. somehow it is still crowded. times like these you are reminded of shanghai's population. HOWEVER, i come to point 7, last but certainly not least.

7. while you wait for your table, you may watch a movie, get your shoes shined and/or get a manicure!!!! oh yeah and you get popcorn and oranges while you do all that!

im sorry...did you read point 7?! this bad boy french mani was all done in my 20 minute wait for our table. amaze!!

ok so you might be asking 'how much is this all?' cheap i tell you!! both times ive gone and only spent 100 kuai!! yes, including the mani. dealiiooooooooo. joy is the only emotion on this face of mine. see you later this week hai di lao.

yi bei re doujiang ye yige sweet dough stick

man it's been awhile since my last post and a lot has changed. my chinese vocab has increased so much that i can now half order things at restaurants (reference the blog title)! except it REALLY confuses people when i combine english and chinese. either they dont expect me to know chinese or im just plain confusing...like at the dry cleaner today when i confidently said 'monday...keyi ma?' (monday, can you?). noted the operative word is 'monday' in this request so yeah. im still learning.

but OK. on to bigger things. BIG NEWS: i now LIVE in shanghai. as in...have my own place, pay my own bills, take out my own trash, change my own sheets, make my own dinner (i.e. order my own delivery). cray. my place is pretty much set up so i fully intended to take pics and put them in this post but then i decided to do laundry sans dryer. sooooo now all my clothes are hanging on every solid surface. aka the post won't happen til later this week

on to more interesting happenings. ive been mia for the past two weeks for some really good reasons. see below:

before i moved, i had the pleasure of hosting our resident carmen sandiegos, laurel and emil wolmut. in my cozy loft studio in the boonies (ah the memories), we three had a blast, plotting new shanghai adventures and re-living old sf ones. we explored the city, ate some fab food, witnessed young chinese children do amazing acrobatics and had some hearty intellectual convo. they also helped me move into my modest new place. i owe them a lifetime of thanks for making me feel like a hostess and actually looking like i had friends in this city!! here's us taking a break from the full-on chinese life we led, at the frenchie bar.

after laurel and emil left (sad face), hao came to visit. as most know, hao is a foodie so it was definite fun (read: gluttony). his first few hours in, we went to this teppanyaki place in the jing'an reel food court. firing up some fresh foie (see front left corner). deeeeeelicious.

we had many many many culinary delights which i failed to capture via camera but i captured with my belly. so good. we did din tai x 2 (goose liver chicken xlb was a new one!), di shui dong (yummy fried whole fish with hunan fried garlic, chili and spices nom nom nom), pichuan sichuan food, a lot of 15 kuai shanghainese xiao long bao (aka the sweetest soup dumplings you will ever eat...and it's not dessert), grumpy pig (braised pork w bacon onion compote sammies), mr and mrs bund lunch set (XL asparagus with ancient ev olive oil and shaved parm, teriyaki glazed long short ribs (omg this warrants a parantheses within parentheses)), madison (shout out to austin - seared foie with strawberries, kamachi tartare, pork belly and green apple, pumpkin brown butter ravioli, ricotta tagliatelle with duck ragu), table no 1 (spiked apple cider, salt&pepper prawns, classic tuna tartare with avocado, seared scallop with corn puree), etc etc etc

it wasnt just all amazing french-inspired cuisine...we also managed a trip to qimin - the organic hot pot spot

(yes jessica, get excited). the meat was amazing and the broth was spicier than spicy. and did i mention we went to din tai twice? that counts.

it happened to be valentine's day while hao was here, so we went to dinner at issimo (a very tasty italian restaurant). in china, a lot of couples like to dress similarly on vday. seriously, i was born to be chinese. i would coordinate even if it wasnt a holiday. luckily my entire wardrobe had just arrived from customs (flown in from US) so i could wear my gold jeans and navy blazer while hao sported his yellow billy reid sweat shirt and denim. granted no one really noticed unless i was like 'HEY LOOK WE'RE DRESSED THE SAME' (which i did three times that night...to strangers).

our last dinner was at lost heaven near the bund - really tasty yunnan food that uses a lot of cilantro. i recently found out hao is mildly allergic to cilantro so this didn't bode very well...but i still enjoyed it so...yeah. haha. sorry hao! right before we got to lost heaven, we saw 6 cool hipster chicks on the subway wearing lens-free geek glasses. so envious. as we walked out of the subway, we found a little stand where i purchased these bad boys for 20 kuai. yes yes i know i overpaid. whatever. my negotiating skills are childish at best (a lot of whining and pouting and no actual chinese spoken) but id say $3.50 is a small price to pay for infinite coolness.

ok so this post doesnt really cover all the cool things ive been doing the past couple weeks like: getting fat, unpacking, chinese class, working, not exercising, meeting a ton of new people and slightly stalking them to be my friend, downloading a ton of american tv shows, getting deathly sick...again, drinking fake liquor (this is so dangerous and unavoidable!), etc etc. but the one amazing thing that happened this weekend - my trip to qipu lu.

OMG brace yourselves ladies. qipu lu is full of these malls where a bunch of clothing, accessory, shoe wholesalers have stalls. yes. i have found my haven. my budget was 1200 kuai or about $200 (i havent really spent much since ive been here minus the week of foie splurging and two large trips to ikea) and i only ended up spending $150 and getting SO MUCH STUFF. granted we got there a little late and so we only had 4 hours there BUT next time i will spend the entire budget. some stalls are just random trendy shit, some are knock off big brands, some are the real thing but just 'fell off the truck'. all are cheap. im obsessed to the point that ive made two separate 'dates' with two separate groups of chinese american friends so i can go twice in the next two weeks with chinese speakers. omg im addicted. eff paying the rent, i will live here.

here's just a preview of what i got (mainly because most of it is at the dry cleaners, hence the need to have everything back by monday).

 two house of harlow necklaces 50 kuai

 silk chiffon (might have some poly in there) maxi dress 110 kuai (yes ish, i will get you one)

 pair of menswear inspired slip-ons with studded spikes 35 kuai (omg im so cool), slim lace up loafers 35 kuai, and yes you guessed it, fur uggs (or as my coworker called them, uglies) 100 kuai.

 silk polka dot dress with peter pan collar (ugh love that peter is back!) 80 kuai
 not to brag...but i also got a pleated plaid skirt 50 kuai, a high waisted foil jacquard mini 50 kuai, pleated paper bag waist black shorts with leopard belt 60 kuai, red leather skinny belt 20 kuai, iphone case 40 kuai and ALMOST got my nails intricately done for 30 kuai but we were a bit tired by then. :P

luckily in my shipment that came in from NY i had a ton of hangers so fear not, there is space in my closet. i think my dry cleaning bill might be more than most of the clothes. haha. dangit.

this week work will be a bit insane and i start my twice a week chinese class. balancing all that plus quizzo and ladies night will be difficult. hopefully by thursday my clothes will dry and i can snap some pics of my humble abode. til then my friends!