Beijing Trip : Part I

Yes yes yes.. Another episode of China Trip.. This time it's Beijing baby. The capital city of China, a place where I found so packed (well, everywhere is packed when it comes to China). We went from Shanghai to Beijing via High Speed Railway a.k.a the fastest train on earth. Not a single second did I rest my eyes, I was too excited.. But enough of that, I wanna share with you all about the FEAST... It has always been about the feast.. ;p

The first eating spot we aim right after we just arrived : it's all about the PEKING DUCK

Quan Ju De : The one and only.. The most famous place to get your Peking Duck.. The restaurant itself was founded in 1864, under the reign of Qing Dynasty. They have been serving their delicious roasted Peking duck for the imperial families. The restaurant has been using the same recipe ever since.

This is the second floor of the restaurant. Almost like a small ballroom.. 

Our beautiful duck.. Yes, they cut each duck in front of you.. 238 yuan for each piece of duck. Expensive indeed. But the restaurant has been serving their delicious duck for the imperials. I think it's logical, in a way, that they charge you with such a high price

Skillful precision in every slice..

Surprisingly, it didn't produce much. There were only three plates like these from one whole duck.. At first I was too scared to be 'duck-overloaded'. 

Of course the beautiful, thin, crispy, super yummy duck skin.. *drool own self*

To wrap your duck.. In a way, it's like fajitas in Chinese version.. 

Beef Teriyaki

This is the rest of the bones with bits of duck meat that they cooked with salt and pepper style. Even though there's almost no meat, it's so delicious that I was biting every inch of the bones.. 

Trying to be healthy, it's just so wrong to have all meat and no veggies on the table..

The duck head.. And those three strands of duck meat were said to be the most delicious part of the duck. I was like 'they all taste pretty damn delicious to me'

Oh yeah, not going to forget about this. They all have a commemoration card certificate for each duck. I bet it's to honor how delicious they all are. 

Our tummies were so full all right.. My siblings didn't even have any rice to eat the duck with. I was too hungry that I ordered a bowl of rice and soon regretted it after walking out the door.. But for what it's worth, I was full.. I was happy.. I was definitely tummy-satisfied..

QuanJuDe
No.30, Qianmen Street, Beijing 
website : www.quanjude.com.cn

SECOND PLACE WE AIM.. tourist spots.. HUTONG

Yes, it's another ancient city like alley ways, which I super duper love. I went there at night time when all the lights were lighted up, it was just so pretty and romantic (in an oriental kind of way..lol). I just love how they can preserve something so old and incorporated so many modern touches to it. Not only the place was packed with tourist, the locals were many as well. It was the 'it' spot with so many bars, different types of restaurants, different cute little souvenir shops that sell mostly anything you didn't even think they would sell it in the first place. And I was completely in love with the place. I didn't even care about how packed the place was, I was too busy doing my 'oh look at this.. oh look at that' tourist tackiness. It's somehow very nice and comforting to know that the youngsters can still hang out in a place that's so old..
I didn't buy any food there.. I just wanna show you how unique and how cute the shops are..

Pretty lights, pretty everything

Pretty lights EVERYWHERE

Traditional Chinese paintings ready to be sold.. 

This shop allows you to write to yourself for the future. Inside the shop, there were A LOT of people sitting down, writing seriously. My brother and I was the only one laughing all the way to the shop.. We were not even sure why we were laughing

I love how traditional they can get

They even have a wine shop.. 

THE NEXT DAY!

Breakfast at some random local fast food chain near UIBE because that's where our hotel was.. It tasted just fine and we just needed something to fill in our stomach before we venture on our journey.. Like any other fast food chain, they have breakfast set menus.. The one thing I will always love about China is how cheap the food can be and how big the portion can get.. Oh another thing I love about China, noodles.. NOODLES EVERYWHERE... Even for breakfast set menus.. The portion was quite big that we only ordered two dishes for the three of us and decided to share it together..

Wonton for breakfast

Noodle soup with veggies.. 

LUNCH!

Xue Jun : a small simple down to earth restaurant near UIBE, famous among the Indonesian students and yes, they serve delicious dishes.. Fell in love with it at first try. There's nothing special about the place really, but I can definitely see why the Indonesian students LOVE the food here. It's cheap, it's delicious and it serves you huge portions.. What can be so wrong about that? Another thing about this place, one of the staffs somehow miraculously looks like Nobita from Doraemon cartoon series. The Indonesian students in UIBE often call this restaurant Nobita's. And yes, I did see who they were all taking about and yes I have to admit, he looks like Nobita.. 

The menu

Japanese tofu with eggs in a hotplate (20 yuan). YUMMY! The picture says it all. I think I don't need to describe how it tasted like. You be my guest. Just picture the softness, still hot, saucy tofu melting in your mouth. Okay, I did describe it after all -____-"

Some PORK tender lovin. Slices of pork belly with green beans and little strands of lomie. It might not look huge in the picture, but believe me, it's huge! Only for 26 yuan. CHEAP MADNESS

Sweet and Sour Chicken (28yuan). I love how fragrant the green peppers are. It's just different from our peppers in Indonesia..

Okay, I think this is the end for the first Beijing Trip episode.. Stay tune for the next part. Caution alert : It will involve something crawling, stinging, not so pretty being.. ;p Till that time, I bit you all ado..

Shanghai Trip.. PART 1

I am BACK! Yes.. The reason why I haven't updated my blog for so long is because I was away.. I went to China with two of my siblings.. The three of us randomly decided to have a Shanghai Beijing trip.. I just got back yesterday and I am gonna post a hell lot of pictures.. food pictures, my pictures, our pictures.. We sure DID eat a lot! Like really really a lot.. I don't dare to get on the scale to see my own weight till this very second..  oh and one more thing.. I am going to write all the prices according to Chinese dollar aka yuan. It's approximately Rp1500 for 1yuan..

A thing or two that I know about the Chinese. They sure eat a lot of Jiao Zhi a.k.a Dumplings.. It's one of their staple food. Some even don't eat rice but they eat dumplings instead.. My mandarin skills are very poor. This is the one country that I find very stupid to be in, yet the one that I love so much because of so many reasons.. I love Indonesia, don't get me wrong, but I can't deny the fact that I have Chinese blood within me. The people there are awfully rude, it's a definite opposite of our friendly polite Indonesians.. But still, unlike the nowadays young generations, who often deny their "oriental essence", I am very much interested to find out about MY ORIENTAL ESSENCE.. I love their history, their myth, their buildings, their beauty of their language (even though I found it very hard to study). Okay enough ramblings from moi.. Let's just cut to the chase.. 

First off, SHANGHAI. DAY 1... We had a red eye flight, the plane took off from Jakarta at 11 p.m. The journey there itself took 6 hours and I didn't sleep one single second there, I just couldn't, I've tried.. It was bumpy and the turbulence was quite severe.. 6 hours of that.. andddddd... We were welcomed by Sunny Shanghai Morning! As soon as we checked in into the hotel, we started off our journey without even waiting a single bit more!

That lipton lemon tea was the first thing that I bought from the super market while waiting to be checked in. Next to it was SHENG QIAN. My new favorite oriental light bites. We don't have it in Indonesia.. It's almost the same like xiao long bao, but bigger, and they fried the bottom part till it is dark golden and crunchy... We just bought this on the street side cause we were sooo hungry!

Our hotel was in the East NanJing road. This was jiao zhi (dumplings) from a small street side restaurant in Nanjing road that we just randomly entered.. Nanjing road is the most crowded shopping street. You can buy all kinds of stuffs from branded products to souvenirs.. It's like Orchard road except this one is bigger.. 

Our next destination was Yuyuan Garden.. All the buildings are vintage, old-city like which I LOVE MADLY! This is the thing that I adore about China. They always take good care about their historical legacy. Instead of just abandoning it, they made it into a tourist spot.  

Yuyuan Garden has existed since 1577 and has undergone many changes as time travels.. It has many shops and places to eat, not forgetting cafes.. They even have Starbucks inside and of course, with a very vintage touch.. 

Dondurman ice cream! It's actually ordinary ice cream but the seller is Turkish I think, since Dondurma ice cream is Turkish after all.. They screamed out loud to attract the people passing by..

What's special is the way they give the ice cream to the buyer. They will play a little bit of trickery and flip the ice cream on top of your head. Just look at this kid, before the picture was taken, the ice cream was upside down on top of his head.. 

Snacks.. Weird light bites..

We bought the deep fried crab.. We thought it was soft shelled crab, but NO! It's an ordinary crab which made it quite hard to bite.. 

Okay this was just plain scary.. and I didn't want to know what it really was.. 

We stop at Kobayashi to buy their unique cookies.. Okay mind my face, I didn't sleep at all the night before.. I was trying so hard to keep it open..

Their unique traditional cookies are engraved with cute drawings.. 

Cute right? Great for souvenirs.. But I didn't buy any cause I'm scared it will all get crushed.. 

What are these people fussing about? Why are they all standing here? Look at the line of people to the very right side of this picutre.. 

They were in line to get the most awesome xiao long bao in Shanghai.. And I have to get in line like from a very far distance to the counter.. O ow... 

The most famous xiao long bao restaurant in China is Nan Xiang.. They made this nonstop! But the people in line were too many that it's just not enough.. Crazy..

I queued for an hour.. The line was almost 10-15 meters long..  We can actually go up to eat in the restaurant but it was also packed so we decided to get in line with this one..

For all that hardwork! At last we got it. Yes, it was steaming hot. But damnnnn, it was good. I was so hungry from the waiting. We finished this quite barbarically and we were not ashamed of it.. The skin is thicker than the xiao long bao in Indonesia, but I think that what makes it different and yummy as well..  

My sister and brother have both spent a year time studying in China. They both agreed that the best milk tea in China is Coco..

And yes, they are right.. It's so much better than all the other milk teas I have ever tasted in my life. Somehow you can really smell the milk and the fragrant of the tea.. It's just perfect. Oh and the reason why my eye brows were arched so high was because I was still trying to open my eyes.. 

For dinner, we decided to eat in Charme. It's inside a mall called Raffles City.. It serves Cantonese cooking with some modern touches..

The place.. Oh and those are my siblings.. My personal tour guides.. 

Charme Beef Curry (58yuan). Yummy! I love it! I am a curry lover.. The beef is so tender. The spices are just perfect!

Baked Wild Mushroom with Cheese (35yuan). Well, you know I am crazy for all types of mushrooms.. It's so cheesy that when I tried to scoop some to my plate, the cheese stretched along just like when you try to cut a pizza.. 

Strewed Broccoli with Crab meat and Straw Mushroom (42yuan). They also have bits of eggs as the sauce. But the crab meat itself is quite generous. Maybe it didn't show at the picture but I ate like a chunk of it.. The sauce was kind of bland though.. But for the sake of being healthy, at least we have to eat some veggies..

I LOVE THIS. It's Stewed Chicken with Taiwanese Sauce and Fresh Thai Basil (48yuan). I love the combination of the chicken, the sweet savory sauce and the smell of fresh basil. It's fresh. We definitely don't have this in Indonesia.. 

and for dessert! Voila.. This restaurant is famous for this Hongkong toast dessert.. This one is the original flavor and yes, again, my tummy was very happy indeed.. Not disappointing at all.. 

Charme restaurant is always packed! They even prepared many seats in front for people to actually wait to get into their table. We came early before dinner time, that's why we didn't get any fuss getting to our table. Even though it's a chain restaurant, I am not dissapointed at all. The food tastes great! The service is good, especially in China where people are so rude, so I have to give a credit to that.. The price is quite high but in terms of the big portions, I think it's worth every penny.. 

Charme Restaurant

Add : 6/F, Raffles City, 268 Xizang Zhong Lu 

opening hours : 11am-10pm

Wait, I see another line.. 

SHENG QIAN MADNESS! Yes it is the fried dumplings I bought earlier, but this restaurant is nationally famous for its sheng qian. I saw another branch on a different place and it was also filled with people waiting in line..

Look at how big the pans are. They are specially made for sheng qian. I got to see the process of the cooking. The chef has to turn it 360 degrees frequently.. The oil was only submerging the bottom part, which of course will be the crispy part. Before taken off from the fire, the chef will throw in some spring onions and sesame seeds.. 

One portion has only 4 dumplings. It only cost for 6yuan. The insides were sooo juicy, it squirted some juice in each bite.. It's just a perfect combination with the crispy outer skin.. 

The juicy yummy meat.. Oh I am currently drooling for some sheng qian.. It's a shame we don't have it in Indonesia.. 

Yang's Fried Dumpling

Add : 54-60 Wujiang Road, near Nanjing West Road / 吴江路54-60号 ,近南京西路 (They also have other branches)

Strolling Nanjing Road. I love the fact that the cities in China will always have a place for you to stroll around.. It's 9 pm and people were still busy with their own business. They even have people singing or dancing or playing violins or any other instruments on the street sides.. So lively.. The lights are adorable, it's just plain gorgeous.. 

On the way back to the hotel, we encountered with a smelly tofu cart! 

Of course we bought it.. I am personally not a fan of chou tou fu. It has a pungent smell which according to me is displeasing. But my brother loves it.. So I guess everyone has a different opinion in this delicacy.. 

The Giordano ad said it all.. I LOVE SHANGHAI

This post is just a start. I still have so many pictures to edit. Stay tune for more of my China trip.. :) I'm off.. well.. for now..