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Woke up to another beautiful day in Shenzhen, although I didn't get to sleep until very late while watching events unfold in Korea. I finally rolled down (or actually up) to breakfast at
Bazaar, the café where guests at the
Mandarin Oriental Shenzhen take their morning meal. This is buffet-style but one could also order up some noodles, eggs, or even beef noodle soup for something a little more substantial. I opted for a lighter breakfast so chose none of those.
I was really intrigued by how cheese names are translated in China. Gruyère into "古老也" is a phonetic and slightly funny take, while Emmental being called "大孔芝士" - literally "big hole cheese" had me sideways.
So I took a mixed bag of goodies... The croissant and pain au chocolat were pretty good, especially considering we are in China. I took single slices of the aforementioned cheese, and a thick slice of bacon.
For my second plate I went Asian and took a Portuguese egg tart as well.
The buffet had a very good selection of fruits, with a section of sliced fruits as well as another whole section with whole oranges, apples... etc.
This was enough food for me for a late breakfast, so I went down to explore the shopping mall at
UpperHills (深业上城). I was amazed at how many makers of electric vehicles had display booths or showrooms in just one corner of the mall. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that anywhere.
I also ran into the corner where
Meituan (美团) has their landing area for food delivery by drone. I had heard that this was being done, and probably should have stayed there a little longer to watch a staff launch one of the drones after picking food up from a restaurant and witness "low-altitude economy (低空經濟)" in action...
I met E for a late lunch at
Chef Tan's Kitchen (谭厨) at UpperHills, whose claim of serving up traditional cuisine from Zhongshan (中山) intrigued me. Zhongshan is famous for their baby pigeons and I recall very fondly the days of eating them at Chung Shan Hot Spring Golf Club (中山温泉高尔夫球会).
The
600 thousand sky-high price pigeon (60万天价乳鸽) gets its name from the time when Chef Tan Zitao (谭子滔) showed this pigeon on a program on CCTV back in 2015. E and I were intrigued by the way the pigeons were presented.
Gotta say that my pigeon was pretty tasty. I could see the juices running down as I started to rip the limbs off the body. Very tender, and one starts to get that milky flavor that I love so much from young birds.
Fu ling jelly (茯苓糕) - not sure why this is important, but I didn't taste much of anything...
Stir-fried choy sum with preserved meat (腊肉炒菜心) - they seem to be famous for their preserved meat (腊肉) so we ordered it with some veggies. Pretty nice.
Baked crunchy fish belly with lemongrass (香茅焗脆鱼腩) - another special they seem to highlight is the grass carp (鯇魚) that Zhongshan is supposedly famous for, which are reportedly raised on broad beans and have a crunchy texture for their flesh. E decided to dispense with the more traditional seasoning and wanted to try it with lemongrass. This also came with shredded kaffir lime leaves and termite mushrooms (雞㙡).
Gotta say that these strips of fish belly were truly very crunchy. So interesting to get this from a fish belly.
Zhongshan-style crispy clam pancake (中山脆鱼饼) - this was pretty decent, with springy clams, spring onions, and white pepper.
This was a lot of food for the two of us, but we got a good taste of what the restaurant can do. Very happy that the ladies from Mandarin Oriental Shenzhen came up with this recommendation for us.
Time to rush back to the hotel and get my spa session in...
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