Category Archives: Interviews

What to expect from the food in Shanghai

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My good friend Gil, a fashion designer living and working in New York received an amazing opportunity to relocate to Shanghai six months ago. Here, he shares some of his experiences acclimating to and experiencing the local food.

I hope that you find this glimpse into the food world of Shanghai to be both interesting and alluring. Foreign food can sometimes seem very intimidating, but as Gil and many other expats living abroad will tell you, you cannot experience a country without its food.

street meat in Shanghai. Photo courtesy of Gil Palacios

So Gil, what were you doing in New York before you moved to Shanghai?

I was working as a fashion designer with a small couture house in NYC

How did you get the opportunity to move to Shanghai?

An old Chinese colleague of mine had an amazing contact with the owners of a fashion company in China. He made the introduction and I was invited to come visit the factories in Shanghai. I was offered a position with this company in January 2011, and decided to take a leap of faith and relocate to Shanghai.

How long did it take you to acclimate to the food?

I’m still acclimating! Since we have a canteen for the employees at our factory I always eat Chinese food for lunch so more often than not I will generally eat Western or Southeast Asian food for dinner. Although all that rice tends to be too many carbs for us Westerners so you have be careful!

Do you drink the tap water?

Never, water quality in Shanghai is very bad, actually most hotels have warnings posted never to drink tap water. It smells a bit like pond!

How do you find the food in Shanghai? Is there a huge difference between American Chinese food and actual Chinese food?

Each region of China has its own unique cuisine. Honestly, I am not a huge fan of Shanghainese cuisine as the palate tends to be very sweet and the food is generally very oily. I prefer Cantonese cuisine, which is what you generally the “Chinese” food that we get abroad as well as Szechuan and Hunnanese cuisines as they tend to be spicy. Uigher food is more of a Middle-Eastern style of cuisine (the Uighers are the Chinese Muslims from the far Western edge of the country ethnically related to Turks).

Do you notice any other cultures influencing the food there?

Luckily Shanghai is a very international city so you can easily find all sorts of foreign cuisines. The area where I live is mostly foreign so we have amazing Japanese, Korean, Indian, and European restaurants.

Can you recommend some of your favorite restaurants in Shanghai?

My top favorites have to go to M1NT, which is a very upscale member’s-only club here. They have a fabulous restaurant overlooking The Bund and the Financial District of Shanghai. The food isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking; sort of fusion cuisine but it’s an amazing space. I love Cantina Agave and Mi Tierra because they offer great Mexican food and being of a Mexican background it offers me a taste of home. There is an amazing Szechuan restaurant called BaguoBuyi in my neighborhood that has amazing spicy and flavorful food. And when I get a craving for pizza I go to NY Style Pizza in the Tianzafeng area of Shanghai, which offers a pretty authentic pie.

How is the language barrier? Have you ever ordered and not been sure of what you would receive?

Luckily, since my Mandarin still is not great, many restaurants have menus with photos on them so I just point to what I would like, but yes, even with the photos, there are still some strange things that show up on the table from time to time.

What are some food scares you have had?

Well one huge issue in China is food safety. There are many quality and safety issues such as contaminated food or food that is laced with chemicals to meet certain nutritional standards so I am usually very careful of where I shop for food, generally going to the supermarkets that cater to the expats in Shanghai. I avoid eating street food although it looks quite tasty but I have had foreign friends become very ill from eating “roadside” cuisine so I would rather not chance it.

What was the craziest thing you ate?

Hmmm, so far I would have to say it’s a toss-up between the duck tongue and the jellyfish head. Both by utter accident! Some of the fish too, but mostly just because its really bony and I still haven’t managed the art of separating the meat from the bones in my mouth and spitting out the bones as is the custom here.

Where did you eat these?

At the luxe banquets that I have had to attend for work. The thing about food in China is that oftentimes things that we as Westerners find distasteful are generally considered rare delicacies and eaten at very special events. I actually just saw a television program a few days ago about a very expensive restaurant in Beijing that specializes in cooking animal penis (deer, snake, dog, etc.)! It’s considered an aphrodisiac and is very pricey

Is food eaten differently there? What are some local eating customs?

Amongst my Chinese colleagues eating tends to be a very social activity and you often attend huge banquets for work events, as people tend to do a lot of business over meals. Generally you tend to sit at a round table with a lazy susan in the center and small dishes are brought out and shared amongst all guests at the table everyone picks from each plate. Some restaurants will have “service chopsticks” so that you do not use you own chopsticks to pick at the food but in more informal settings everyone just takes from each dish with your own chopsticks.

Bali, Vanuatu and Fiji- Letting loose in the South Pacific

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I recently interviewed my friend Annie about her past trip to Bali, Vanuatu and Fiji. In the following interview, you can hear all about her trip and learn what she does to prepare for visiting a new country.

An American Girl in Transit: So Annie, tell me a little about your past trip! Where did you go exactly?

Annie: I went to Bali, Fiji and Vanuatu.

AAGIT: Wow! Why did you choose these places specifically?

Annie: My husband Sam had to go to Australia for work and he wanted to take a vacation there before his work actually started. However, I realized that it would be winter in Australia during July so it wouldn’t make sense to go then. Normally I prefer to travel to more undeveloped countries anyways so we decided to see what else was nearby. We first looked at Fiji, but then everyone kept telling us that Bali has so much more to see. Although Bali can get pretty touristy, I decided that it was still worth going to since they have such a thriving culture. Once we settled on Bali and I kept researching the area, I found Vanuatu, an island that has an active volcano, nice beaches and a huge local culture. So we decided to do Bali, Vanuatu and then end the trip by relaxing on a beach in Fiji.

AAGIT: When you talk about researching these countries, what resources did you use to research your trip?

Annie: I used Lonely Planet’s website and Trip Adviser and then used Yahoo questions (where you can ask questions on the web and anyone can answer) to see what people would say about each place.

AAGIT: Normally, when you plan a trip, is this the typical way that you research a country beforehand?

Annie: Yes, I try to pick a country with nice weather and interesting things to do as well as having a thriving culture and friendly people. I love going places that have a friendly, warm atmosphere.

AAGIT: So how much of your trip did you book beforehand?

Annie: We booked all of our flights and we booked some hotels. We left some open just in case we liked some places more than others and we could have some flexibility.

AAGIT: So is your typical travel style booking a few things ahead and pretty much getting to your destination and seeing what there is to do there?

Annie: Yes! I like to play things by ear and hate to plan. If anything, Sam is the planner. I like to just pick a country and figure things out as they go along.

AAGIT: Do you find that the less you plan the better time you have?

Annie: Absolutely, I like not knowing things about a country because I think it makes things more fun. I didn’t know that much about Bali, and when I got there I just thought it was so interesting.

AAGIT: Sounds exciting! So lets talk a little bit about what you did in each of the 3 countries you visited.

Annie & Sam in Ubud, Bali. Photo courtesty of Annie Press

Annie: We started with Bali and went to Ubud first, which is the cultural center, where we did a lot of bike riding around. Everything is so beautiful there, especially all the rice paddies. We hiked around a lot, just exploring the sites and the culture. They had a festival while we were there called Galungan, and we went to the temple and watched them prepare for the ceremony. After Ubud we traveled to Seminyak, which is a nicer version of Kuta. Kuta is a beach town where most of the tourists and backpackers go, but Seminyak is much nicer in my opinion. So in Seminyak we hung out on the beach, and took a tour to a neighboring island for the day. The nightlife is also really great there.

From Seminyak we flew to Port Vila and then on to Tanna in Vanuatu. Vanuatu is the

Tanna, Vanuatu Photo courtesy of Annie Press

country that the show South Pacific is based in. Everyone is friendly there and they wave to all the tourists, but they are not as welcoming as in Bali, because they are trying hard to retain their local culture.

After Vanuatu we flew to Fiji and went to Nadi and the Mamanucas where we stayed in the only over water bungalow. You can see through the glass floor to all the fish and coral below you, because the water there is so clear. Fiji really has picture perfect beaches.

AAGIT: Do you have any travel advice for people going to these three countries?

Annie: I didn’t get a chance to travel to East Bali, but I heard it’s amazing. Also you only need one day in Nadi, Fiji so don’t spend any more time than that there. I didn’t like Port Vila that much so I would go to the outer islands like Santo or Tanna.

AAGIT: Sounds like an amazing trip Annie! Thanks so much for sharing.

*Annie also included a detailed description of her and Sam’s trip to Vanuatu below:

Our trip to Tanna, Vanuatu began with a 30 min flight from Port Vila (the capital city of Vanuatu). Vanuatu is the country that the play South Pacific is based on and the people there are the nicest people we have ever met.  Everyone says hello and waves to you as you drive by.  When we arrived, we all packed into the back of a 4 wheel drive pickup truck from the 1970’s and took a short ride down the dirt path (there are no paved roads in Tanna) to our “accommodations”. We had no idea what to expect but it turned out that our local hotel was very nice.  The grounds were beautiful, on a cliff over looking the ocean, and the rooms were simple but nice.   It was the only foreign owned hotel on the island, which had 24-hour electricity, hot water, working toilets and a mosquito net. It was the only hotel on the island with a generator running 24 hours a day. No one else on the island has electricity.  We landed around 4pm and watched a beautiful sunset from lounge chairs by the beach.  Given there are no restaurants, bars, movie theatres or streetlights, everything gets dark after sunset and there is not much to do. The locals all sit around campfires and drink “kava” so Sam and I just hung out in the hotel.

Tanna, Vanuatu Photo courtesy of Annie Press

The next day we visited a local village, where they live completely segregated from the

children in the local village. Photo courtesy of Annie Press

outside world. They walk around wearing bamboo and eat leaves, whatever they grow on their land or pigs/chickens they find in the forest.  They care more about their land then they do about money so most people just live off their farm.  The women did most of the work and the men sat around most of the day and drank kava at night. The children did not go to school so only one of the women (who married in from another village) spoke English.  She explained to us the customs as we watched the women cook, children play and men hang out. She explained that everything is communal and there are arranged marriages. If a girl marries in to another tribe, that tribe must give her family one of their daughters in return. They also happen to love Americans because they believe that there was an American named John Frum, who they pray to, that brought them radios and cargo during world war two, so now they pray to him, waiting for him to return.  It is all very strange. There are villages that do American type procedures in order to hope that he will return; they raise flags and march in an army like a procession. It was like out of a movie. There is no crime, no police, no taxes, no lawyers.  The chiefs handle all land disputes. Everyone, from age 3, owns machetes and they just look out for food all day long. We were talking to the people at the hotel and they were telling us how frustrating it can be working with the locals because they just have absolutely no concept of time. They are all very nice but they do not care about western comforts or time constraints.  Also, if someone is on a different side of the island they can stay where ever they want to at night. I was talking to one of the locals and told her that some people had no place to sleep in New York and were “homeless” and they could not fathom the concept of people not having a place to live.

On the way home from the village we passed by the hospital and I wanted to look in. We

The surgical room in the only hospital on Vanuatu. Photo courtesy of Annie Press

went to check it out and I met one of the two doctors that work there. Both, he and his wife (the other doctor) are from Canada and are part of a charity that sends different doctors every six months to run the hospital (the only one on the island). They are just starting to train their own doctors in Fiji now. It was interesting to see and he told me all about the challenges he faces there.

After the village, we went on a 2-hour drive to Yasur volcano, the worlds most accessible active volcano and is one of the only places in the world that you can walk up to the crater of a volcano and watch it spit out lava. We stayed until sunset when you can actually see it spitting lava, which was very exciting but very frightening for some… (cough Sam cough)….

the eruptions from Yasur volcano. Photo courtesy of Annie Press

We then drove back in the dark, through the jungle; their roads are basically the jungle that they decide to drive through.   Most people do not have cars, they either walk or horse back ride. But if you want to get a horse, you don’t go to the store to buy one, you simply go out into the bush and find wild horses (we saw a bunch while we were there) and if you

Sam being chosen as chief for the day. Photo courtesy of Annie Press

can catch it, its yours. The next day we went on a boat and went snorkeling and swam to a blue cave. Then later that day we went to visit another village. This time though it was more of a show for tourists than their actual way of life. They showed us how they used to live and also danced for us. Then, all the foreigners were asked to choose a “chief” for a day and since Sam and I were the only Americans, everyone chose Sam.  So they dressed Sam in a grass skirt and came out dancing with him as if he was one of their own.

The next day we took a tour to a deserted waterfall, where Sam jumped in. On the way to the waterfall we were talking to our driver (from the village next to our hotel) and we were telling him about computers. He had heard of them but had never seen one! When we got to our tour guide’s home he was nowhere to be found (the locals really have no concept of time). So our driver walked with us to the waterfall and then from there we hiked to a black sand beach where it was just us and local children bathing in a creek nearby. It was beautiful. After that it was back to Port Vila so we packed our things and headed to the airport. At the airport Sam was playing on his ipad and the locals saw it and were enthralled. Everyone crowded around Sam and we showed them pictures of the blue diamonds in Miami (a 35 story building where my grandparents live), and they were so shocked that people actually lived in these huge apartment buildings. Finally, our flight came and we flew black to Port Vila….