Shanghai Spring, Food, IBS

Spring has come to Shanghai. Flowers bloom, new leaves bud on the well pruned trees. All sorts of foreign pollen irritates my eyes and throat. At least the weather’s been perfect.

Here are some random photos from the last few days, many of them documenting food:

Peacocks in the Shanghai Flower Market bicycle parking lot.

Flower market parking with friendly attendant.

The door to Narnia.

J. flying a 5RMB($.75) kite in Zhongshan Park.

J.’s kite getting entwined with others.

Other kites flying proud on a clear day.

Kicking the feather with the Eurotrash.

J. and I at our 3rd anniversary dinner: all you can eat Japanese teppanyaki for 150RMB each. We ate a wide variety of grilled meats and vegetables, ramen, sushi, sashimi, and deserts. To drink was peach juice and beer.

Asparagus and egg filled fish.

Beef.

Special duck.

Sushi.

Construction crew resting.

Pork and diced vegetable wraps.

Spicy tofu.

Vegetables at the apartment.

A sweet potato snack.

Lays wasteful packaging consists of a tray within a tube.

Fired shredded potatoes at Southern Barbarian Restaurant.

Chicken wings. Another delicious dish not pictured was mint salad.

Fresh beef noodle soup from Bull Noodle.

Sesame noodles.

A typical lunch at work from a cheap delivered Chinese restaurant. Fried noodles with beef and broccoli with butter (and bugs).

Massive and expensive burger at Bulldog Pub.

Sichuan Beef in spicy broth with mushrooms and vegetables from Charmant Restaurant.

Baby sugar cane and greens with slime sauce.

Black sesame smoothy, our favorite.

All the trees in the French Concession are blooming.

There’s good food to be had in Shanghai, but I don’t have a taste for it. It’s Thai food any day for this picky fellow; even the tastiest fare here can’t compare. One problem is that the food in Shanghai is either really cheap or really expensive. The cheap food is oily and often good, but prepared under questionable conditions. The expensive food may be good, but it isn’t good enough to justify the cost. The worst offenders in price are other cuisines like Indian and Thai. For the price of naan or papaya salad, I’d rather put the money towards airfare to either country.

Worse, my stomach has issues in Shanghai. I’m not sure if it’s food related or due to stress, but I’ve been getting bloated, big time. If John Mayer were to write a song about me, it would be titled “Your Body is Problematic.”

For now, I’ll chalk it up the mysteries to the always funny IBS.