Exotic Meats & Lotsa Shopping

Tuesday 4 October 2005

After that exhausting jaunt in Hangzhou, we decided to give ourselves a treat and not set our alarms for once. We woke up in time for lunch, and that made us very happy.

Before that though, we popped by Dongjiadu to see pick up my tailored stuff. The jacket's shoulders were too narrow and had to be taken out, and the waist of the coat was too long and had to be taken in. So we left them there and went in search of food.

I insisted on having exotic meats the entire day, so I was brought to a Yakexi (亞克西) - a nomadic Islamic tribe, I suspect - restaurant.

The meat dishes are in the centre, and they are sheep's balls (left) and horseflesh (right) respectively. Yes, you heard right. Sheep's balls. I'm not sure whether they were of the testicular or the scrotal region, but they were definitely from "down under".



The horse had a smoky taste, as if it'd been roasted. The sheep's balls were stir-fried with Persian fennel (孜然), which Xuanfei claims is rather addictive.


A close-up of the sheep's balls

The texture of the flesh was very slightly rubbery, but the fennel seemed to have removed the distinctive raw taste of sheep and left it very flavorful indeed.


Balls-licking good

We also had some lamb kebabs which were to die for. What a great carnivorous feast!

I felt like looking at the Bund in the daytime so we did that. Still depressingly grey though, and yes, still raining.



I said there'd be a more phallic picture of the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower, didn't I? Ta-dah!



Snigger.



It being all rainy and shit, we thought we might as well spend the day shopping, and we started down Nanjing Road once again. This time it was a lot better, for there were far less people about than that first crazy night. However, there was also vehicle traffic this time, which could get annoying, since the sidewalks were so tiny. Luckily there was a whole stretch of street converted to a pedestrian mall, which was rather friendly.



Nanjing Road wasn't very exciting, so off we went to this marketplace that specialized in knockoff branded items. Shoes, shirts, jackets, you name it. They actually look pretty good from the outside too. I had my eye on an "Adidas" tracksuit, but the stitching inside was ugly as hell, so I refused to buy it, pissing off the storekeeper no end. I mean, I'm not against knockoff clothing (those designers make too much money anyway), but if I buy a knockoff I want it to be so convincing it can even fool myself. That's the ultimate test, isn't it? So we left the marketplace empty-handed.

The vending machines in their subways are kinda cool and weird at the same time. They sell anything and everything under the sun. From M&M's to drinks to cigarettes to even condoms - and all in the same machine! How freaky is that?


Condoms in the machine, next to tissues

Shanghai also has a Cathay theatre, which I think is very cool. It even looks a little like the one we used to have at Handy Road.



Huaihai Road (淮海路) is where all the new, fancy-schmancy shopping is to be found, but I really managed to find clothes I wanted to buy (and at prices I was willing to pay) in the side streets off it. These side streets held a whole bunch of export-sales stores (外貿店), which had overstocks of labels, production samples, and yes, some knockoffs too. The knockoffs were easier to spot here though, because they were so overwhelmingly tacky, they had to scream the designer's name at every seam. VERSACE! ARMANI! DKNY! CALVIN KLEIN! HOW TASTELESS!


Huaihai Road

In a bookstore along Huaihai Road, we saw something which brought back memories of a time over seven years ago.

This one's for all you CCC veterans out there. Take a bow, and thanks for the good times.



Walking around, walking around, the Chinese still like their National Day, streets are pretty at night, yadda yadda yadda.







This is a cool Levi's store.



Next stop: Xintiandi (The New World - 新天地), which is kind of a misnomer because these buildings are some of the oldest in Shanghai. They are built in the Shikumen (石庫門) style, which I don't really know how to describe, but you can find out more here. The buildings have now been restored and converted into all sorts of commercial enterprises like pubs and stores. I think they were aiming for a quaint kind of feeling, but somehow there's still no getting away from the sheer commercialism of it all.



"More exotic meats!" I demanded. And so here we were. This is Siberian roe deer，also known as Eastern roe deer (狍, or 麅 in traditional script), scientifically known as Capreolus pygargus (Apologies, the linked article's only in Chinese).



We couldn't for the life of us figure out what kind of animal it was supposed to be. It wasn't until a week later that I managed to find out on the internet that it was actually a kind of deer. No wonder it tasted like venison. Very yummy, though the tiny skewers were annoying as hell.



The above is donkey meat. It has a nice and tender texture, like that of beef, but with a slightly disturbing musky taste.

This is Xuanfei demonstrating the eating of a special dish - sugar-glazed keropok (蘇黃菜). Basically, vegetables are covered with egg and deep fried into a cracker-like thing. It's then dipped into a huge pot of melted sugar. When it comes to the table, it's burning-hot, so you have to dip it in water to cool it first. Very tasty.



Food is dirt-cheap in China, and even restaurants are really affordable, which makes me a very happy glutton indeed.

After dinner, there was nothing left for me to do but retire to my tiny motel room and smoke.





How sad.