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.

Lots of sales at the grocery store this weekend!

15.80 RMB for 500g of very fresh frog

Eels and turtles are more expensive. 56 RMB for the eels, and 248 RMB for the turtles (500g)

After hearing a lot about this Canadian restaurant called Julie’s Bistro, we decided it was our patriotic duty to go and check it out at least once. The restaurant is located on the Hongmei Pedestrian street in Hongqiao district, amongst a bunch of other foreigner bars and restaurants. Hongmei Pedestrian street seems to be to North America what Xintiandi is to Europe.

Other than poutine (which Julie’s is infamous for, being the only restaurant in Shanghai, or maybe even China, to have it on the menu), I’m not sure exactly what qualifies as “Canadian” food, but it appears to be pancakes, waffles, crepes, big English breakfasts, and typical bar fare food like wings and burgers.

While a bit overpriced, the food at Julie’s is great, and the portions are huge. Ellen got the “Emperor’s Breakfast” (2 eggs, bacon, sausages, toast, potatoes, fruit, 72 RMB) and I got the blueberry pancakes (3 blueberry pancakes served served with whipped cream, additional blueberries, and dragon fruit for 65 RMB). For 22 RMB you can get a bottomless cup of drip coffee, which is like weak diner coffee. Unfortunately, their other coffees are so pricey, it just can’t be justified (35 RMB, >$5, for a double espresso…?).

Overall, a decent restaurant for unpretentious, standard western food that is filling and decent quality.

I’m not sure what the deal is, but lately I’ve been noticing this fad in China (and Japan too) of western fast food chains offering burgers with multiple patties. Since a lot of Asians don’t particular like hamburgers all that much, consider western fast food as more of a trendy snack item than a meal, and generally prefer small, cutesy things, I’m wondering why massive hamburgers would be big sellers here.

A few weeks back I first noticed the above image in a Burger King ad in the metro station. I’m not a fan of fast food hamburgers, so I haven’t tried it, but a friend told me it wasn’t possible to fit the burger into your mouth in one normal bite – you have to attack this thing from different angles.

Shortly after, it seemed like KFC decided to jump into the game. This promotion allows you to supersize their popular spicy chicken sandwich to TWO big pieces of chicken for an extra 1 RMB (or $0.16 cents CAD). I’ve actually tried this one and it’s not bad – definitely a lot of chicken for 13.50 RMB (around $2.13 CAD).

But the craziest has to be this Burger King Japan promotion. For some strange reason, there is a Microsoft Windows 7 launch promotional Whopper with SEVEN patties. Who the hell could eat this damn thing?