china summary: getting by

Getting around Shanghai and Hong Kong was super exciting. I had a lot of great eating, and a lot of great yelling in Mandarin, and just generally a pretty great time. For the most part I ate at vegetarian restaurants, where the only concern was whether or not it contained egg or dairy, and this was usually pretty easy to suss out.

On one occasion I had cause to eat at a meat-serving restaurant, where nobody spoke English. Despite the wide choice of vego restaurants to visit, with their english-subtitled menus where pointing could take place, this meal did highlight how convenient it was that I speak Mandarin, and I was comforted when our server used the magic word (素) to describe what she was recommending.

Hong Kong was a little English-speaking, though I did have to use my terrible canto skills to get by at some points. After two weeks adventuring through Shanghai and Hong Kong having to speak either Mandarin or Cantonese every day, I don't know how someone who didn't speak any Mandarin or Cantonese would fare. I was definitely glad I can read Chinese characters, because often there was no English to be had. This also made reading train maps in Shanghai a lot easier, though there were sometimes subtitles there, too.

Speaking of the train maps: the trains in Shanghai and in Hong Kong are pretty great. Easy to use and easy to get around, and cheap. If I did it again I'd seriously consider a top up card for Shanghai, due to the frequency with which the ticket machines broke or were unavailable. The stations themselves are massive, and many of the entrances are not great for people with mobility issues, or with sight issues.

The only food backup I really relied on was the corn on the cob you can get from stalls as you wander by. I had seen stalls selling you tiao/yao chao guai one morning, on my way to a temple; however on my return they had packed up and I was so disappointed.

Using Happy Cow was mostly fine, though a few of the details were out of date. I didn't really do much research beforehand into what restaurants would be good, I kind of just went for it. I had one bad restaurant experience, at the Jade Buddha restaurant, where despite the restaurant only being half full we were unable to be seated, and the wait staff refused to even catch my eye, so we left. Also I can confirm that the restaurant at Jing'an Temple has indeed closed, much to our chagrin.

Please note that everyone smokes, and most places allow smoking indoors. And many places are filled with stairs.

A summary of my Shanghai and Hong Kong posts:
i: godly vegetarian [功德林素菜馆], shanghai
ii: song yue lou [松月楼], shanghai
iii: vegetarian lifestyle, shanghai
iv: new age veggie at the super brand mall [新素代餐厅- 正大店], shanghai
v: the yangtze langham hotel, shanghai
vi: annamaya, shanghai
vii: three virtues vegetarian, hong kong
viii: long man lou - chi lin vegetarian [龍門樓 - 志蓮素齋], hong kong
ix: gaia veggie shop, hong kong

I only wish I had eaten more noodles!

china vi: annamaya, shanghai

I missed one of my Shanghai noms!

C and I ventured out to the French Quarter to visit the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre, a tiny little private museum. The museum is a little confusing to find, as it is located in the bottom of an apartment complex, but it is totally worth the visit. After we finished up there we were hungry and it was hot outside, and we didn't want to have to trek too far. Located just on the opposite side of the train station from us was Annamaya, a macrobiotic Japanese restaurant.



This place is adorable. It is tiny, with mismatching everything and a little hand written menu in Japanese and English. Vegan items are clearly marked, and there are many of them.

I went for the tofu steak, which is served with miscellaneous salads, sadly including one of my least favourite vegetables. The steak itself was delicious, though, and served with a really lovely vegan mayonnaise.

C had the curry of the day, which when I sampled it was also tasty.

Diners have the option of selecting directly from the menu, or choosing one of the set menus (which go salad-main-drink or salad-main-drink-soup).

There's lots of Buddhist and Ayurvedic literature available.

Annamaya
3 Taojiang Lu
near Hengshan Lu

Get there on line ten of the metro (Shanghai Library stop - 上海图书馆) or line one (Changshu Road stop - 常熟路). Two little steps up into the shop, the tables are close together and mine was wobbly. The toilet is out the back and is Japanese style (ie, has a seat warmer and a bidet and plays music) but is a little difficult to get to if you have accessibility issues.

徐汇区
桃江路3号
近衡山路

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

china iv: new age veggie - super brand mall [ 新素代餐厅 ] Shanghai

Across the river in Pudong, the very picturesque tall buildings of Shanghai can be found: the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Centre, and the Jinmao Tower. Towards the end of our stay we ventured across to this side of the river, hoping to get a closer look at the Oriental Pearl Tower, and an opportunity to go high up in the sky. We did manage to find ourselves 91 stories high, in a bar at the Park Hyatt (which doesn't even start until the 87th floor). However before we got that far, we found New Age Veggie, located at the Super Brand Mall in Pudong.



There was a lot to pick from at New Age Veggie, and I wanted to eat all of it. It was hard to decide, but in the end we went with the pulled noodles and pork in soup; seafood curry with vegetables; saffron chicken rice; and salted chicken things (not its real name).

Probably my favourite of these dishes was the pulled noodles with pork. The broth had this lovely flavour and the noodles were excellent, just perfectly cooked. I actually ended up eating most of this, both because it was super delicious and because it was a bit too spicy for C. New Age Veggie is very Sichuan influenced, so a lot of the dishes have quite a beautiful chilli bite to them. I think that this noodle dish was an excellent example of it.



The seafood curry with vegetables was a perfectly serviceable and not too rich curry, complete with tofu cut and coloured to look like one side of a king prawn (awesome); the saffron rice was very understated but a perfect aid to mopping up the curry. Finally towards the end the salted chicken came out. Not only is it battered mock-chicken, but also capsicum. This was, as advertised, quite salty, and not really my thing, but C enjoyed them.

After we had paid the bill and were leaving, we dallied by the sweets counter. There had been a little menu sitting on our table during dinner, and C had perused it, interested. But New Age Veggie does use dairy, so we were unsure. Still, we hovered, and one of the wait staff came across to us. When I asked, she pointed to the black forrest cake. She was adamant that it was free of all dairy, so on that advice, we took it back to the hotel with us.



Certainly it didn't make me sick, and my body reacts quite dramatically in the presence of dairy (as it proved three days later after a coffee at Starbucks in Hong Kong), and it didn't after eating this moist and creamy cake, so I am calling it definitely vegan despite appearances and wishing I could have another. This cake was lovely, though it was apparently the only vegan sweet in the window.

All in all, a most excellent experience at New Age Veggie. After I absconded to HK, C went back for lunch without me and reported that the pancakes with pork was good, and like everything else we'd eaten there it was kind of spicy.

The menu is in Chinese with English subtitles, and has several pictures. The staff don't speak English at all. No egg, but some items have dairy so you have to ask.

Accepts credit cards, accessible via lift in the mall, wide apart tables and an area just inside the door with no steps. You can call for service via a remote that sits on the table (it has buttons for water, order, and cheque).

New Age Veggie - Super Brand Mall
5F - 20A/B
Super Brand Mall
168 Lujiazui Xi Lu
Pudong
Shanghai

Take Metro Line Two to Liujiazui Station ( 陆家嘴站)

新素代餐厅- 正大店
上海
浦东
陆家嘴西路168号
正大广场
5楼20A/B

recommendations for shanghai and hongkong

I am going to Shanghai next week, and Hong Kong the week after, and I am starting to get really excited about it! So now I am looking for recommendations for food and things in those two places. In HK I'm staying on Kowloon (in Kowloon?), and in Shanghai I'm staying in a fancy boutique hotel right next to People's Square.

Have you been to either of these places? Do you have anything to recommend?

Also, has anyone purchased the Happy Cow iPhone app? I am considering it but I have such a mixed relationship with Happy Cow I'm just not sure! Advise me, internets!