Din Tai Fung Times Three ...

Here are the three biggest Din Tai Fung fans, heading back to have brunch on Sunday morning before leaving Shanghai later on that day. Within a week, it was their fourth visit to the area, Xintiandi, and their third time to have meal at their much-liked restaurant.

Off to the same building again, South Block Plaza. It was barely 10AM, there were merely some people. It was just nice.

The picture below was from the first evening we went there, it was crowded then at the restaurant and we had to wait for a bit for our table. This time, we had reservation and it was way too early for the crowds.

We ordered some tofu dish that we never tried before. I can't remember what it was called. It was reasonably tasty.

We also had our usual favorite, one basket of 10 xiao long baos and a few other dishes too, including their noodles.

These nicely-arranged shredded ginger came with our xiao long bao. We did not eat or use them at all somehow.

These dumplings were from our first meal there. They taste like their xiao long bao, but they have shrimp on top. We all like their xiao long bao better.

I had a bowl of beef soup as I was not feeling that great, I thought soup would be good for me.

Long beans have become the kids' favorite and one of the must-have things when we go to this restaurant.

By the time we finished eating, there were a lot more people there. It's time to go back to the hotel, pack our bags and leave for airport. Til then, Din Tai Fung!

Third Time Is The Charm!

Prior to coming with us, in the recent months DH has gone to Shanghai twice. First, some months ago, he went with his mom and in the Summer, he, flew there, again with the Princess, Miss P. He asked both of them to go up to the 101-storey tower, Shanghai World Financial Centre. Both of them declined, likely to be out of fear over, what I think, was slightly over-exaggerated description of the place. I heard about the glass floor and the intimidating lift rides.

Third is the charm for him, he brought along two gutsier kids with more curiosity. And a wife who is always indifferent about many things, including of whether to go up 474 meters above the ground to see the view of Shanghai or simply stay on the ground level of the earth. The building in the above picture is the one that we were about to enter. 60 minutes were the estimated waiting time. There was a visibly reasonable length of people lining up outside and we knew there were more inside.

There was nothing much interesting to see while waiting. The weather was fine, there was a tiny baby being carried on the line, I am not sure if the end, this baby really went up. There seemed to be some tour groups, but they had different lines. There were a couple of people that jumped the queue and grinned happily for their accomplishment. I told DH that we could not live in Shanghai as we will be very unhappy and angry people seeing people cutting the lines, pushing, shoving and doing things that we do not approve of. He agreed.

We paid RMB150 per person to go to the three available floors for viewing the city from the building's three different floors.

The view? I was not too impressed. First of all, the sky was not that clear, the view, therefore, was not very clear too. Second, there were sooooo.... many people. All the windows were covered by people in one to two layers. It was difficult to look out, it was even harder to take pictures. Moreover to enjoy and appreciate things over there. I managed to get some lousy pictures there. Then quit. See below.

We decided to go down after spending around 30 minutes there, we had to join the queue again to get the lift down, some 15-20 minutes again before getting to the lift. That's all. Bye view, bye RMB600.

Here is a picture of the building:



For more fantastic snapshots, click here.

Alternative

I'm not done yet with my Shanghai stories. DH and our two kids got so hooked on Din Tai Fung in Xintianti. The place tends to be really full and there are people lining up fto get the table during meal times. We did not make any reservations and had to wait for a bit when we went there for the first time. The second time too, when everyone else but me, went there for dinner.

Again, we tried for the third time on Saturday. Of course, being the weekend, there were tons of people waiting outside as well. A Japanese restaurant that we originally wanted to go to was fully book for lunch and dinner that day too. We decided to go to Crystal Jade in the corner of the building. We still had to wait, but we got a table in around 10 minutes.

We had our cravings for noodles and dim sum satisfied there. In addition, we tried a couple other dishes too. We had no complains about the food, they were alright.

Here's the building where some of the restaurants I mentioned here are located. It is called Xintiandi South Block Plaza. On the way there, I spotted a girl that looked like a movie star and decided to become a nosy paparazza. I have no idea who she was, I just thought she looked great. More interestingly, check out the guy on the background on the right hand side. What a walk!

Chicken Cacciatore

We had this dish, Chicken Cacciatore, with Tagliatelle early this week. I used chicken breast that was cut in smaller edible pieces and button mushroom.

The whole process was not too complicated and the result is still very appealing.

Old Town of Shanghai

We have been to Old Town of Shanghai and Yuyuan Garden, both of which are located close to each other. We wanted to go again. It was crowded back then, but it was nothing compared to this time. Just look at how mad the place was..... It was packed. It was so hard to walk and I figured, Yuyuan Garden would be just as packed or even more packed than the area surrounding it.

It was always nice to check out the small shops and kiosks there, they have some nice colorful stuffs that we do not need but they do make good photographs.

There are shops that sell tons of goodies, all the labels seemed to be in Chinese. I was afraid to try. God knows what's inside and I was not too adventurous!

The lanes were full of people as well, of course. We recognized some familiar names like Haagen Dazs, Starbucks and Dairy Queen. There were some places to eat too. It would be too stressful for me to eat over there. We stopped by an interesting store that sell all sort of notebooks and were warned of pickpockets.

We took more pictures around the pond. By then, it was time to leave. It's a quarter to 12, we were there for merely an hour. Again, it was too crowded to enjoy.

Accomplishing A Mission...

One of the reasons that we came to Shanghai was because we could not get the hotel that we like in Seoul. Originally, that's where we were heading to for the break. It was not that we wanted to be in Shanghai. We wanted to get away. I wanted to get away, I needed a break. I was close to going berserk.....

I did not expect to do much but eating great food and just chill. Of course, I found out later that it was not what my companies had in mind. It's alright, but we still get to go to this buffet at Yi Cafe in Shangri La Hotel in Pudong.

The restaurant claims to have 10 kitchens that are visible to the guests, offering international range of cuisines that spread from Japanese to Middle East. We were thrilled. As we walked in we could see a large selection of mouth watering desserts.

Every one of us started differently. The kids began with Naan and Curry and the adults picked sashimi and sushi and spread into others.

We tried not to get too full to taste their desserts too. They were just fantastic. They have cheese cake (first picture at the very top) and ice cream too.

Let me mention that they also have Chinese noodles, dimsum, Beijing Duck, pasta, Thai food, steak, super yummy fries, salad with generous amount of. OMG, prosciutto ham..... and many others. Tons of things. I wish I could back there soon, but I do not wish to go to Shanghai in the near future. Yet.

Tempted

Talking about peanuts. A niece of mine mentioned in her email that she was having this as snack. This, that I meant, was peanut coated in seasoned egg and rolled in flour before having them deep fried. The Indonesian name for them is kacang telur, kacang means peanut and telur is egg. Most recipes pointed to garlic, sugar and salt as the responsible parties in giving the tasty flavor of the snacks. They might be available at some stores here and I could easily get DH to buy me some from Jakarta, but of course, me being me, I tried to make them at home.

It gave me satisfaction to be able to make them myself whether I will make them again or not in the future. They are good, but I don't think I should eat too much snacks or peanuts, especially since my family members here are not keen to try. They do not like peanuts.

Pretty Petunias

I must say, the streets of Shanghai are pretty with some green and flowers. Noticeably, Petunias of many colors were found in many streets that we walked by. On Nanjing road, potted Petunias are placed along the street as well.

I only captured some of the colors, as originally I was not going to take a snap of them. They, however, were kind hard to resist, looking so pretty and inviting. Many of these pictures were taken in Pudong.