Dining at the Mall

Nt to my chagrin, I have discovered that there are many restaurants at the Mall.  I am chagrinned because I did not adequately explore the third floor of the mall to find out that there is a sushi place, a Thai restaurant and a korean hot pot place.

Yesterday, I went to the Thai place.  It was expensive by Chinese standards.  I paid a whopping 15.00 for a carafe of some kind of blue, fruit water drink, some tasty thai egg rolls, and some tasty fish curry.  15.00 is alot considering my usual culinary forays set me back around 2.00 to 3.00.  

The thai food was quite good.  The weird fruit water drink was the color of windex and raspberry gatorade.  It was served in a martini glass.  It probably would have been better with some vodka in it.  I felt like a teetotaler sipping a mock tail.

The egg rolls were nothing great but were palatable.  Fish curry is quite good.  It was nice to have fish that did not have bones.  I was very leery as I took each bite, expecting the bones in the fish to open like an umbrella in my throat.  

My only complaint is that the thai food was very chinese.  It had a good thai flavor, but had alot of oil.  I need to cut back on my oil intake or I will soon not fit my clothing.

The day before, I went to a korean hot pot restaurant.  At your table, in the middle, is an electric burner.  The staff but a metal bowl on the burner and pour very hot spice/oil mix into one half of the bowl.

You then order meats, vegetables, seafood, and other items to drop into the boiling water in the middle of your table.

I tried shrimp, some lamb, some thing like a potato and some sort of lettuce type green. I didn't really know what I was ordering, but the staff were helpful. The shrimp came out with their heads attached.  If you have not seen a shrimp with it's head attached recently, you might not know that shrimp in China have large, beady black eyes.  They seemed to be looking at me.

After my items had been heated, I pulled them out and ate them on lettuce.  You make a sort of burrito out of the steaming hot stuff from the bowl and your leaf of lettuce.  It is very tasty and low in carbs.

I think I over did it with spices though.  When I left the korean place, I was literally pouring sweat from all of the hot foods.  I can only imagine what the staff must have thought of the sweaty foreigner.

I also spied a sushi place, but need to explore that further.

The past two days, I also have had a chance to eat some very tasty soup at some small fanguan in Hankou near where I work.  A co-worker took me because she was feeling sick and wanted some soup.

Yesterday, I had seaweed soup with pork.  It was very good and made me feel extremely good.  Today I tried duck soup.

I spoke to another teacher afterwards, and he said that people do not eat the meat in the soup.  They just drink the beth, and give the meat to dogs or throw it out.  I do not agree that this is the best way to eat soup, and will continue with my practice of eating all of the stuff in the soup bowl.

Tasty eggrolls and weird non alcoholic blue drink.  I got this because, apparently, I do not know how to pronounce ice tea properly.  There was a picture of this on the menu, hence I got it.

Curry fish and rice is very good to eat.