This was our dinner from a few nights ago – Pan-Fried Pizza. The lack of a proper oven means we can rarely enjoy something that’s baked. So equipped with some leisure time and the unwillingness to step out into the blasted heat for groceries, I decided to enroll myself in some culinary experiments.

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These pizzas are relatively easy to make, as are most pizzas (they are a very forgiving food), unless you are really specific about how you like them. As you can see, I completely overloaded the toppings. But I still wished there were Rocket or Arugula, I love them on pizzas and in salads. For some reason I can’t resist their special bitter taste. This time we had to make do with Prosciutto Crudo, Pepper Jack Cheese, Grilled Aubergine, Caramelized Mushrooms and Onions and Sun-Dried Tomatoes.

When it comes to food, I’m greedy but not gluttonous. Greedy in the sense that I want to taste lots of different dishes at every meal, hence why I’m always eyeing and salivating over other people’s dishes as restaurants. In my perfect Communist Utopian world I would be free to sample from anyone’s food, with their permission of course but given they’d always say yes.

My new favourite snack: Pee Pee coconut chips from Thailand! Second only to dried mango.

I’ve heard a lot about this restaurant Commando Chicken that serves – of all things – Mediterranean food (I’m not sure what I associated the name with, but it wasn’t gyros and schwarmas).

Curiosity finally got the best of me and I decided I had to try it out… and holy hell, am I glad I did! It’s probably the best bargain in the city, and the food – while no means gourmet – is great!

For 80 RMB (or around $12) we got:

- HUGE Chicken schwarma with potatoes and salad
- HUGE Rotisserie chicken pita with potatoes and salad
- Two orders of fries
- Chicken wings

Seriously: there was so much food we couldn’t come near to finishing it. And it was all really damn good!

Fast food pics always end up looking gross – it was way better than it looks:

Commando Chicken, you rule.

In the last year or so, these Food Safety Inspection notices have been popping up in restaurants and cafes all over town. Very few places seem to have the green face, and I’m guessing it may have more to do with guanxi than clean noodles.

Oddly enough, it’s still somewhat reassuring to know that most places I eat at earn a bright yellow look of apathy.

Ellen’s colleague gave her this loaf of “coal” bread as a little gift. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had or even heard of black bread before.

I figured that it would be white on the inside, but nope:

In the picture it looks a bit green or something, but it actually was completely black. I was almost afraid to eat it, but it turns out it was pretty good. Very fresh, and – like a lot of Asian breads – sweet.

Browsing the iTunes App Store, I was really surprised to see how many apps there are that are solely dedicated to finding the nearest cup of Tim Horton’s coffee in Canada. Out of curiosity, I downloaded one free app, TimmyMe, and got the above results. I clicked on the first one expecting a long – but walkable! – 7697 km, but it turns out it was actually twice as long as first reported!

Here are the directions to the closest Tim Hortons from Shanghai’s Luwan district. Which for some reason happens to be in Whitehorse… :

Almost 16,000 km and 37 days driving, a lot of which is underwater! Also, I’m not the best with directions… but from China, I would’ve gone east instead of west.

I’m not too confident about that ‘shortcut’ west of BC either! Let’s hope and assume this app works better in Canada…

Well this is an interesting deal. I’m just wondering, which one should I drink first?

Hint: At 68 RMB, NEITHER.

Went to this bulk hotel/restaurant supply store on Macau Road in Putuo district last weekend to pick up some kitchen stuff for the new apartment. This is the place you go when you need 10 walk-in freezers, 1,000 woks, 60,000 sets of chopsticks, 200 industrial meat slicers, and steamed bun baskets up to 1.5 meters in diameter.

The place has four floors in a huge warehouse with endless shelves that carry everything you could think of that would be used in a kitchen or restaurant (both Eastern and Western).

We picked up an awesome stainless steel wok, a Japanese sake bottle with cups, and some tiny xiao long bao baskets.