A few weeks ago in Nanhui, Shanghai I went out with a college student whom I was working with for a bite to eat, something spicy to warm me up after having lost my coat at the Beijing airport and thus having been freezing my butt off for days. Long story, but suffice it to…

During my stay in Nanhui, a suburban district of Shanghai, I had to get used to the fact that there simply was no good coffee accessible to me for days. Really, the only option would have been to search for a dust-coated jar of old Nescafé at the local supermarket, and pay an outrageous price for…

A work-related trip to Nanhui (a suburban region of Shanghai province) last week lent itself to the opportunity to try some traditional Sichuan dishes, an opportunity that I was particularly excited about. Having lived in Hong Kong, I’ve sampled mostly the oh-so-delicate Cantonese cuisine, along with some Fujian and Taiwanese, but not too much of…

For a simple breakfast one morning in Shanghai I chose 85°C Bakery Cafe, a bakery-cafe chain originally started in Taipei but also hugely popular in China. I figured I might as well try the way most locals realistically chow down in the morning before work, without going into a Starbucks. The place is actually more of…