china v: drunk in the langham

One warm night two weeks ago, C and I went for a walk over to the Bund, checking out the lovely view. We tried to find the cocktail bar in the Peninsula Hotel, which the Lonely Planet said was Shanghai's first, but to no avail. Finally, tired and hungry and warm and a bit grumpy, we decided to get a taxi the two kilometres back to the hotel. Getting a taxi was easy. Then the taxi driver yelled at me that we were going such a short distance. Then we sort of got lost. Then, driving down the middle of a road (literally, straddling two lanes), the taxi driver and I got into a yelling match and didn't notice the bus heading straight for us (the only evidence I have of this bus' existence is that C told me about it later).

This was a really exciting experience for me because all the yelling was done in Mandarin. This was a real turning point for me during our trip to Shanghai (and happened quite early on, I have not been blogging in order, sorry!).

We finally made it back to our hotel and, determined as we were to have cocktails, we availed ourselves of the bar in the hotel.



I know everyone makes fun of JD in Scrubs when he orders his appletinis, and I don't know how much alcohol they have, but this lycheetini was epic. I ended up with two of them because it was so delicious, and it was totally worth it.

Sadly there is no food to be had in the bar, though there were free nibblies (and free apertifs, which, surprise, were not vegan in the least), and we headed back up to our room and then C had to take charge and order us some room service.



It will come as no surprise to anyone reading this how happy I was to drunkenly eat noodles in my hotel room. Room service was very accommodating, letting us make all the mods required to make greasy, wheaty, saucy noodles for a late night vegan consumption. It was basically the only thing we really could eat, but it was good and it was exactly what I wanted. A bit expensive, comparatively, but that is no real surprise either.

The hotel was pretty, too! I totally recommend staying there, it's central and I liked it.

Langham Yangtze Boutique Hotel
740 Hankou Road
Huangpu
Shanghai

Right next to People's Park

汉口路740号

a wedding dinner at the Hilton

Our friends K and R got married on the Ides of March, which was a super hot Perth day, and we were all standing in the sun in Queens Gardens and I forgot my parasol, which was a bit boo.

The reception was at the Hilton in one of the rooms there. There were h’or dourves to start with, one of which we could even eat (tiny fruit kabobs), and some which we couldn’t (FAIRY BREAD). This was followed by a sit down buffet, however us vegans were instead served a three course menu of deliciousness, so delicious that I didn’t feel a need to go peruse the buffet for baked potato products (with which I am frequently obsessed).



We started with a potato and leek soup. This was creamy and flavoursome, and topped with puffed tofu. I was really impressed with this soup, and this was actually what triggered my current soup obsession.



This was followed by a filo parcel filled with sweet potato and sundried tomato. This was fantastic! I really want to replicate it. The flavours of the potato and the tomato worked well together, and I love filo pastry. The filo parcel was accompanied by a terrible side salad, but by this point we had already started dancing (the idea was that dancing continued throughout the meal, as everyone was eating staggered due to the buffet), so we’d swung to In the Mood between the soup and the main, and as a result weren’t hugely hungry.

Dessert was a giant fruit salad and lemon sorbet.



Mad props to the chef, our meal was fantastic. The food up at the buffet sounded delightful (in a non-vegan way), and the three vegetarians at our table were delighted with the spread, but the vegan options we received were awesome, would nom again.

Also our bonbonniere was vegan chocolate! The Sweet William purple bar.

I am always so pleased when our friends are so awesome at remembering us and providing for us.