MY CHINA DAYZE 2: 55 RESTAURANTS and TWO HOME MEALS in 70 DAYS IN CHINA 2015

On this page you will find the list of restaurants where I ate while in China this year; in addition, I was lucky enough to have been invited to two homes where I sample delicious food. One, a potluck, gave me samples from at least six hands, and of course the six course lunch Xuan An provided was wonderful, along with the opportunity to talk with her son, who is preparing for a job search in San Francisco.

This page, in addition to the restaurants has a list of the hosts and companions, who have provided me much joy and friendship over meals during this 70 day journey. But first a couple of home invitations:

XUAN AN INVITES Me to her HOME

Here is An

This is Fanglin; An cooked six dishes for our lovely lunch @ An's lovely home.

JUNE POTLUCK at HE YAN'S.

We met on a Wednesday at He Yan's for a mid-week potluck. He Yan's got a great house with a lot of room, which includes a huge basement with a full-sized table tennis table, which functions as a dining table when she has a good number of guests.

Recycling works in China too. This sign is recycled from a party for Susan.

Pan Zhixing, Xuan An (2014), He Qiong (Lisa) (2007), Li Sui (2009), Zhou Xiaohong(2001), Lu Yuanwu

This is not dessert. No, and it's not fruit. The ladle is a huge clue.

She's done enough, but still she cooks on: He Yan is working on a . . .

An knows how to take it easy.

1. Ajisen Ramen Restaurant

2. Din Tai Fung

3. Golden Bull -- This is a Northern Vietnamese restaurant, its food considerably different from the South Vietnamese food we are used to eating.

He Yan is working on a coconut.

And here Ding Yaping and He Yan are performing the Chinese version of grace, giving tribute to the food placed before us, recording it for WeChat.

4. South Memory

5. Pizza Hut / Dairy Queen slurpy

6. Tasty Congee and Noodle

7. O’Noodle

8. Sushi Gassho

They have great salads. This is the house salad.

This salad is the better of the more costly salads on the sushi house menu

9. Northwest Restaurant after climbing Sheshan: mutton legs

Leg of mutton (my guess is that this is the front leg.)

Ruby, Xiaohong's daughter.

10. Green Passionate

ma ma hu hu; I ate here once.

11. KFC

12. Ballagio

13. Tairyo Teppanyaki

14. Ippudo a ramen restaurant

15. #5 Restaurant Minhang campus

16. Dain Ti Hill

A month after I ate here, the place closed.

17. Meixin Jade Garden --One of the four best restaurants
These are photos from my second visit.

Simple bone-in spare ribs--delicious

Maybe the best shrimp ever, except. . .

Abalone over noodles

What a desert!

18. Greenology is a special vegan restaurant. The presentations were awesome as were the flavors. The prices were, too. French portions with French prices, and I can't say I walked away full, but I was happy with the total experience. In my top 5 restaurants.

I am giving Wang Danli the title of food consultant. When we first went to dinner, she kept asking me where I wanted to go. I named a restaurant, and then she asked again, where I wanted to go. I named another restaurant, assuming she didn't want to go to the one I had named. After being asked several more times where I wanted to eat, I decided to ask her, thinking that she had an idea of her own. And she did, for this is where we arrived. An interesting vegetarian restaurant that I never would have found on my own, the dinner was delicious, beautiful, and interesting to the eyes and the taste buds. Since then, she's been one to suggest restaurants, some of which have been ma ma hu hu; but a few have been outstanding.

She has the advantage of having a lot of college friends who eat out, and she gets reviews from them and the internet.

19. Cold Pasta

20. Hantong Food & Beverage Development Co. (Ninbo area restaurant.)

Gigantic Yutou (Satoimo)

21. Shanghai Min

Obviously, I was a little slow on the camera here. But dinner was great. Professor and Assistant Dean Tao Qing was the host. You'll see him in the group picture down at the bottom of the page.

Below are Meg Ryan, Shelley Yang (who is coming to Highline this fall) and Pres. Jack Bermingham.

22. Xiabu Xiabu

Xiabu Xiabu is an inexpensive hot pot restaurant. It's got a Chinese name that sounds like the Japanese dish--Shabu shabu, which basically is a hot pot--cook it yourself place.

23. La Pasta

24. SJTU restaurant (Xuhui)

25. Watari Japanese Restaurant
This is a restaurant I won't be returning to even though the food looks okay.

26. Faigo Hot Pot Restaurant

Another hot pot restaurant, but this one is a little more upscale. Yes, we chose all these items.

27. Hua Mei Da Hotel Restaurant, Beijing

28. Old Feng Roast Lamb Spine Hot Spot Restaurant, Beijing
My waitress had to translate everything I said through an electronic translator, but it all worked out.

Here is what was left at the end of the meal. I think I did pretty well. It took a lot of finger licking and gnawing to get this far.

29. Mutton Soup Restaurant, Beijing

30. Dingyin Hotel breakfast restaurant

31. Jade Store Restaurant, Beijing

What was this? Tomato beef soup a la Campbells? and Sweet and Sour Chicken nuggets? Chinese American food in a Beijing government store restaurant? The eggplants were good. (and the nuggets actually were nicely done, crisp and light and flavorful.

32. Great Wall Restaurant, Beijing

33. Urban Harvest Restaurant

Someone brought out the fresh sprouts and cut them before they made the salad.

This is one of the top five restaurants I ate at during my time in Shanghai. And the shrimp (first picture, second row) may have been the best shrimp I've ever eaten--certainly in the top two.

34. Gourmet Noodle Restaurant

35. Pistacchio Restaurant --upscale Italian restaurant

36. Pasta (Metro City)

37. Cloud South Yunnan Ethnic Cuisine

38. Kwei Mun Lung Restaurant
A moderately priced restaurant, but in the running for best of my visit.

Until I put it in my mouth, I thought this was a mushroom.

39. Carl’s Jr.
Had a full meal here for 37 yuan--about 6 dollars.

40. Charme
One of the best Grand Gateway restaurants; it consistently has a waiting line as late as 8 p.m.

41. Simply Bakery

42. Ramen Play

43. Lizarro
This Shanghai Spanish restaurant featured tapas and the expected paella. This was Father's Day in America, and Ding Yaping treated me to dinner at this surprising choice.

44. Dumpling shop in Xi’an
Lucas, my guide, and I had a half a kilo of dumplings each; I wish I had remembered to shoot pictures! Mine was lotus root and pork and his was leeks. The dinner finished with a bowl of the water in which the dumplings had been cooked. It was very good. Even now, I look for dumplings on a menu. Afterward, I bought Lucas his first banana split at Haagen-Dazs.

45. Terracotta Warrior Museum Store Restaurant

46. Muslim Soup Restaurant]
I thought I was eating a pasta and mutton soup, but I found out differently, the next afternoon.

47. Second Muslim Soup Restaurant

My guide Lucas called this steamed bread and beef soup.
The small dish contains a sweet garlic pickle, which we ate between bites of the soup.

48. Mahmood Hotel Breakfast (Merlinhod hotel)

49. Luyu Roast Fish Restaurant

50. McDonald’s ------------ is the same everywhere.

51. Lulu Restaurant

52. Bi Feng Tang restaurant

53. Chao Zhou food

54. Shun Feng in Bailian mall.
We had a small party here my last Sunday. There were 13 dishes ordered for the 7 of us.

55. Golden Anchor
Last year duck tongue, jelly fish, and sea cucumbers were my adventure treats. This year at the
Golden Anchor I had uncooked shrimp, crab, and snails. Here they are: