The best meal I have had in China...

... so far and outside of a home kitchen.  Which everyone knows is so much better than a restaurant anyday!

Imagine a hot pot filled with Ippudo broth (yes, that ramen place)...  the freaking broth was eye-opening.  And I never say that.  The broth was soo rich and creamy but not as fatty as the Ippudo broth.  And that pot was ginormous but we still managed to finish 6 pots.  That was 6 pots between 6 ppl.  Welcome to the land of overeating

There were too many dunkables to show but suffice to say that we did not have just broth.  Between the 6 of us, we probably had 2 chickens, all manners of pork products, an entire fish (3 lbs) and various tofu and veggie roughage.  One of the best items were those shrimp balls filled with nacho cheese!  yes, nacho cheese!  crazy right?  crazy good :)

I double dare you!

Would you eat a sauce named the Bacterial King?  How about if I tell you the sauce is dark brown and covered in a shinny sheen of reddish oil?  Sounds appetizing? 

  

Surprisingly it wasn't that bad.  But I drowned that sauce in a multitude of other sauces so all in all, delectable!

Here's a side by side view....

 

Temple

So zen, especially in the middle of the day when most people are working.  Lots of elderly people and families paying respect to the dead. 

 

I am glad no one built a Starbucks in the middle of it.

On the brighter side...

One of the culinary benefits of China is the abundant fresh seafood...

Beautiful prawns full of roe and eggs... now that I think about it, is it ethical to eat spawning prawns?

Shanghai smells like a giant toilet bowl

What haven't ppl heard about shanghai?  There's no need to talk about the skyscrapers next to the dirty huts built 100 years ago but looked like they withstood several centuries.  Yadda, yadda, exorbitant real estate prices, shockingly fake food, 80 hour work week as the norm.  What I don't understand is why when apts average over $1 million dollars, why does the lobby still has that oh-so-familiar shanghai scent of last night's urine?