Detour to Hangzhou day 2: shrimp and tea leaves

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It's a new day and I need some breakfast. I had originally thought about grabbing some noodles like the Hangzhou specialty pian er chuan (片儿川), but the place Nicemo recommended would take 20 minutes by taxi - or 40 minutes round trip. That seemed like too much effort just to get breakfast on a workday, so I decided to walk around the hotel and see what I would come across.

Unfortunately, there were no shops nearby offering the noodles I wanted. Most were places offering simple takeout stuff and bakeries, which didn't offer any interesting local stuff. I actually considered getting brekkie at McDonald's... but eventually came across Longquan Shaobing (龙泉烧饼) which offered simple shaobing with preserved leafy mustard (梅干菜烧饼) - something I tasted for the first time two days ago. Actually, these also came with little bits of pork fat. So... totally up my alley! Happiness.

Detour to Hangzhou day 1: dinner by the lake

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On my trip to Hangzhou last month, I kept telling people that the first (and previous) time I was in Hangzhou had been in 1998. At that time, the only international hotel in existence was Shangri-La, and what was then Hyatt Regency Hangzhou hadn’t even opened. Well, tonight I’m staying on the shores of West Lake (西湖) for the first time, and using this opportunity to dine at what has become a Hangzhou institution - 28 Hubin Road (湖滨28).

Chef Fu Yueliang (傅月良) – who now helms the kitchen at the amazng Ruyuan (如院) - had been the executive chef here when this restaurant opened. He had modernized and made the pagoda-shaped braised pork belly into an iconic dish. Since he didn’t serve us the dish when we were at Ruyuan last month, I was determined to have it here.

The restaurant offered us two small dishes to nibble on: broad beans (蠶豆) and Chinese napa cabbage (白菜).

Detour to Hangzhou day 1: Liangzhu culture

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I’ve been spending time around Anji (安吉) over the last 2 days for our company offsite, and it was time to go home. Since Nicemo offered to drive a few of us back to Hangzhou, I requested a detour to Liangzhu (良渚) so that we could tour the ruins of the ancient city, which are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The trip from Banyan Tree Anji to Liangzhu National Archeological Site Park (良渚国家考古遺址公园) took a little more than an hour. We rented a golf cart and Nicemo drove us around the park for our tour.

Caprice in August, part 2: Le Pin duo

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It's been exactly two days since some of the MNSC boys last saw each other, and here we are again tonight, sitting around a table blind tasting wines. It's my turn again to play host, and for the second time in two weeks I'm back at Caprice with the Hairy Chevalier. With a smaller group tonight compared to last week, we could comfortably fit into the Chef's Table and hang out near the cheese cellar.

With a bunch of old fogeys at the table who bitch about long menus, I asked my friend for a short service. I was serving Champagne to start plus 3 flights of reds, so 4 courses ought to do it for these guys. Focus on quality, not quantity.

As is the same with every meal, the amuses bouches arrive in la boîte à bijoux:

Foie gras tartlet

Lobster tartlet

Crispy anchovy roll

Beef and Bro Bro

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It's been six years since Bro Bro left us, and we continue to toast him on his birthday. Unfortunately I messed up by choosing to host an MNSC dinner on his birthday this year, so tonight we're doing this a day early. Since we had a pretty good meal a few months ago to remember his passing, I decided to go back to Gyu+bar by Miyoshi for more beef.

For our second visit we chose not to take the set dinner menu, and opted to pick and choose à la carte. This way we could get exactly what we wanted.

This bread has a distinctive shape that looks awfully familiar... Sadly the texture is a far cry from the original I'm thinking of.