Finally, some time off to continue posting! I’ve not had a blog backlog this extensive before. Good thing instead of bashing away at my Surface Pro 3 keyboard, I’m going full speed with my Cherry Blue MX Ducky. Woohoo! Hopefully I remember everything that’s supposed to go into this post.
To start off with, this was a necessary trip that wasn’t my decision, so it was a super short stay where I didn’t plan too much for myself in case there wasn’t any time to explore. That being said, yes, there were backup plans. Just in case I could roam free….
I landed in the afternoon and met up with family. Dinner was simple and in a restaurant located inside a shopping centre, and the food here was Yunnan style I believe, so there were a lot of spicy things on the menu. I mostly let my parents order, since I didn’t really have a preference. The first picture is a dish called “beef in copper dipper”. Sounds unassuming, but was actually comprised of offal! Most of it was stuff I already liked, like tripe and tendon, but what was really interesting is that there were intestines in this one too. And intestines are tasty! Except for the fatty bits because those tasted like really strong beefy flavoured mouth coating sticky fat things, which wasn’t half as pleasant as consuming the lining. There were also some rose flavoured red bean pastry things, which were nice but a bit sweet, and a tad more artificial rose flavour than I prefer.
And of course, bullfrog! Braised bullfrog with bolete mushrooms. I love eating frog, and I love mushrooms, so this was a tasty dish. There were some green chillis in here that I ate just because, and while they weren’t that hot, they still burned me a little. Sometimes I hate having a low chilli tolerance, but that doesn’t stop me from eating things I like!
Look, the sky is blue in Shanghai! Who would have thought :D
My brother and I were left to our own devices the next day, so my plan was to revisit some cafes that I enjoyed during my 2014 visit. This was Essence Cafe, but their “SCAA” sign was no longer plastered outside. And in those 3 years, I think my coffee palate has changed, because this time round, the coffees weren’t as tasty as I remember them to be. Their range was still great, but they’d changed the way they served it – last time they served half hot, half cold, and this time the beverages came as hot only.
The top coffee was a Costa Rican CoE (probably #1), chosen by the 2014 WBC champion, and it cost a lot, at 130RMB. It tasted pretty good, but I reckon it could have been brewed better.
The second coffee was a ninetyplus Ethiopia Tchembe. I’m not sure this was brewed properly because it didn’t taste good until it had significantly cooled down.
We had to find lunch somewhere, and we were in the expat area where there were heaps of pubs and western restaurants. We were deciding whether or not to go with Wolfgang Puck’s eatery or not, and decided not to. Instead we hopped into this pizza place called Bottega to have some simple fare. The antipasto plate wasn’t too bad, I mainly wanted it for the buratta. Plus, my brother has been good antipasto while living in Japan, so we absolutely had to order it.
I wanted a simple pizza since they’re a measure of how good a place is. The picture doesn’t really show the scale, but those tomato slices were HUGE. As big as my palm, maybe bigger! How do you get tomatoes that big?! It wasn’t really that tasty. There was a lot of flavour lacking in this pizza, which should have been absolutely delicious considering it was mozarella, tomato and bocconcini,
Ah, the tall towers of Shanghai. Having previously visited the Oriental Pearl, the World Financial Centre and the Jin Mao tower, it was time to scale the newest tower – the Shanghai Tower. It’s really, really tall and it’s deceptively normal looking in that first picture, however in the second, you can see that we’re significantly higher up. It was okay, but I still like my open air observation decks better. And ones where there’s further visibility. One of the greatest attractions while we were here, was the window cleaners. How cool, and so many people were taking pictures of them! Imagine being a window cleaner for tall buildings – that’s quite a drop!
Again, since we were in the area, a revisit to Fuel inside the IFC was warranted. Wow, what a weird menu. They had all sorts of weird descriptions for their coffees and their piccolo wasn’t actually a piccolo (that I know of). This was a “latte ristretto”, and wasn’t as tasty as I remember it to be. This was their classic roast, and it was too dark for me now! It was a 4oz velvety coffee, because apparently some of their drinks featured “less velvety” milk. I don’t think I understand.
More random restaurant pictures. Food wasn’t that interesting for the most part, though I did see a lot of mantis shrimps, so I had to order one, especially because one of my favourite roasters, Mecca, made a Mantis blend of coffee based off the mantis shrimp, but I never got to try it, so I figured I’d go for the real thing instead. Sadly, I don’t think this was a particularly happy or fresh shrimp because there was hardly any meat inside. Maybe if I wish really hard, I’ll get a mantis shrimp one day at a fine dining establishment!
Okay. In walking through one of the shopping centres, I found this. The Starbucks Reserve Bar. I’d passed on them while I was in Hong Kong since there were other cafes and interesting drinks to be had (including butterfly pea tea), but here, well, I had nothing better to do, so here goes nothing. I was totally prepared for the worst experience.
First of all, our barista, a pretty cool guy who could speak English so I talked about coffee with him. He explained which coffees were on offer, so I made my choices. I wanted them brewed via syphon, and anytime I choose that method, I generally just want to show off. lol. By that I mean that the syphon is particularly eye catching and is generally a conversation starter for other customers and the barista. However, you know that the barista means serious business when he recommends a chemex instead. Anything but the syphon!
How wasteful, no dine in cups :(. This was the Ethiopia Bitta, a lot I hadn’t heard of before. I imagine that Starbucks has access to a completely different set of beans from what hipster specialty coffee establishments usually buy. The chemex was also HUGE at 1L, so it was shared with my family. The barista also gave us a sample of chilled filter too. The chilled filter was better. That says something, especially because I love hot filters. The chilled one had a sweetness to it that was nice. The hot one had a nice aroma, but the taste of it wasn’t great at all. It was pretty bitter, and got more bitter as it cooled down! Oh dear. Whatever Starbucks has done to these beans, it’s beyond saving. I could taste some of the flavour, but not a lot. I imagine the green beans would have been brilliant if treated well, but after being roasted, this wasn’t nice at all. I tried to finish as much as I can, but it was as bad as the aeroplane coffee I had. Oh well! At least now I know!
Starbucks will always be Starbucks.
An intermission of a dog and a cat! My mum took us to an area that I think I’d been to before, one which was old style and full of traditional sweets, street food and tourist trappy souvenirs. There were a lot of stray dogs here that weaved through the crowds, looking for food scraps that’d been dropped.
On our last night, we walked past another trendy are of Shanghai. My brother pointed out a newer cafe – Seesaw Coffee, which had been on his radar for a while. At first I didn’t think much of it, but since we had time after yet another family dinner, we decided to check it out. And look at that. A brew bar, and their La Marzocco box was on display! How cool!
Lovely pictures of lovely coffee. Yeah, this was totally more my style. A lighter roast, their espresso and filter were both fantastic! Ethiopia Aricha was on espresso, and it was pretty good. It was light and fruity, just the way I like it. The filters were also interesting. Not only was there the Panama Auromar geisha, one of the coffees that Proud Mary had (and it was really nice), but there was also some coffee from Yunnan! While it’s more well known as a tea producing region, they grow coffee as well apparently! There were take home bags which showcased three different processed – washed, black honey, and sundried, which was super cool. After tasting these – which were actually rather delicious and interesting. It was surprisingly pleasant so we all bought some to take back home!
That concludes my China trip for this year. I think every time I visit, it’s slightly more bearable, but still not a place that I want to go back to. At least the coffee scene has improved, and the next one on my list, should I ever need to return, is Greybox Coffee or something along those lines, which is another new specialty coffee shop.