A Late Dinner

Last night was an interesting night. What made the night interesting was our late night stop for food. We would have "dinner" or "breakfast", which ever one you prefer, at 1:30 am at a local Chinese restaurant. This adventure would be a continuation of my localization process.

Our trip to dinner began with breaking one of the unwritten rules a foreigner should never do. We would take a "illegal" taxi to our dinner destination. This taxi does not have a meter and the fair should usually be negotiated before you get into the taxi. When I visited our assembly plant in Beijing, I have had to take many of these "illegal" taxis. The town where the facility is located is very small and it costs 10 RMB ($1.46 US) to get to any destination in town. Our local friends negotiated and payed or taxi fair.

We arrived at a local hot pot restaurant 新招鲜. Hot pot is kind of like create your own meal. You choose from many things on the menu and dump them in the pot wait until they are cooked and eat up. The menu was completely in Chinese and our friends ordered all the food we would eat for our late dinner.

We had chicken. When people in the states think about chicken we usually think about the chicken wings, chicken breasts, thighs and legs. Well, at this restaurant, the chicken was chopped up and included the feet, the head, the liver, and the heart. Well, it included the whole chicken. Not a single piece of this animal would go to waste. We also had three different types of green vegetables, potatoes, lotus root, and probably pork intestines. The most interesting part of this dinner was.......

Yes, it is the brain. I have no idea of what animal this brain comes from, but it definitely was too big to be a chicken. Well, all this food went into the pot and cooked to perfection to be eaten. Everything would become a nice mixture of flavor. Many of you are probably asking yourselves if I was able to eat the brain. I have to say everything was very tasty except for one green vegetable which tasted very bad. I have to say the little bit of brain I did eat was much better than the green vegetable.

Tasting the brain was a must do activity. First of all, one never knows if they would actually like the food unless they taste it. Secondly, as part of my localization process, I have to not only experience everyday activities, but also try more local food.

The brain looks much better cooked, but probably too hard for some to eat. As far as my thoughts on localization and getting into the cultural experience, I had to try it.

Many companies talk about localization, but fall way short in their aggressiveness to localize. Their concept of localization is using international companies to supply parts to them which they can buy locally in China or dealing with international companies to buy their products. This concept is like eating KFC in China and saying you have eaten local food. The real cost savings and money to made will come from buying parts from Chinese suppliers or selling parts to Chinese companies. It is extremely risky, but if you don't try it you will never know the true concept of localization.

Excuse me, that seat is not taken!

Imagine being at the local fast food restaurant. This restaurant is completely full. Well, there are many tables that have two people sitting together eating and talking away. You do not know these people. In fact, you have never seen them in your life. There are no free tables available. Do you go sit down and have your meal at their table?

If you live in the United States, the answer is no, that table is occupied. Those two chairs where no one is sitting have a force field around them and they can not be occupied by any other person not known by the two people. Even if no table or other chairs are available, the chances of those chairs ever being occupied by a stranger is slim to none.

China is different in this respect. Any open chair can be occupied by any person who eats in the restaurant. The force field created by the person or group of persons extends just to the chair they occupy. It is very likely that two people can be eating at a table with two other complete strangers. This situation is very normal at alot of the local fast food type restaurants that serve western or Chinese fast food. In fact, at Chinese hotels, the meals are served at round tables with many chairs. Many families will sit down together and eat without even knowing each other.

Back Street Bar

Friday night I had the opportunity to explore a different bar in Suzhou. This bar is called Back Street Bar. I really don't recall where it is in Suzhou, because I wasn't paying attention to the route as we were going to the bar. The bar had a nice warm feeling to it. On the wall were pictures of different alternative artist like U2 and Pink Floyd. It brought back some old college memories of the music I use to listen to. It would have been nice to see some REM and Rush pictures hanging on the walls. It really is a nice cozy place. Very simple and warm. There was a live band playing some good Chinese rock music. In the US this place would be called a hole in the wall.

To my surprise upstairs was much bigger than the downstairs. It was just as cozy with a few sofas, nice seating, and a bar with bar stools. We had the bar special to drink, five Budweiser's for 100 RMB ($14.60 US).

When we arrived we ordered some street food. There were three choices so we got a little bit of lamb, pork, and beef. We would enter the bar and the outside vendor would bring the food to our table. This service was pretty cool, because we could eat and drink at the same time. All three meats were deliciously spicy. We had a total 100 sticks and between three of us we devoured all the food brought to our table.

After eating, we played the same dice game played during our New Year Celebration. A new rule was added to the game which made it a bit more difficult. You could only look under your cup one time. You had to remember all possible combinations you could have made to be able to keep up with all the changing numbers.

It was a nice place to sit and drink, enjoy the music, eat some local street bar b cue, and play some dice games. Also, I thought it was pretty cool that I was the only westerner in the bar.

First New Year Ride

The first ride of the year would be a long road bike ride. I would ride from my house to the Trek Bicycle Shop in SIP. There we would meet a group of guys and ride out to Tai Hu Lake. This ride would be 131 km with five complete hours of riding. There would be eight road riders.

We would ride all the way out the island on Tai Hu crossing the three bridges and then doing a short loop around part of the island. It would be very nice scenery and a very pleasant ride. We would average about 26 km/h with spurts up to 40 km/h.

We would eat lunch on the island before our return trip home. I have a few more food pictures of some new items that we consumed. The first is a nice and spicy fish, followed by the restaurant specialty. Their specialty was an eel or snake dish with pork. The eel was very good and supposedly good for men.

It was really a cold day with temperatures ranging from -2 C to 7 C. I would use full winter gear which includes two jerseys (one with an integrated hood), a wind resistant cycling jacket, glove liners, gloves, and shoe covers. It always feels cold, but the guys say that when we start riding at 30 km/h+ the cold goes away. I agree.

Street Food

Well, Tuesday night the guys decided to go out and have some fun. We ended up at one of the local bars for a few drinks. The highlight of the night was trying the local street food.

There is all kind of food that can be grilled for any taste. They have food for vegetarians and meat eaters. You can have a sausage, lamb, fish, chicken wings, green beans, cauliflower, tofu and many more. All items on a stick! First you chose what you want you want to eat. Then, the cook will place your items on the grill and pour some special spice over your choice. As far as i can remember, the spice was the same for every selection. When it is cooked eat up!

I tried the chicken wings, cauliflower, green beans, tofu, lamb, and also the fish. It is very difficult to eat chicken wings on a stick. It is even more difficult to eat the fish on a stick!

After a night of drinking and having fun in China, don't forget to try the street food! It is very delicious. I recommend you try the fish. This inexpensive treat is a must try for anyone in China.

Second Winter Ride

This weekend was my second ride this winter. My first ride was about a week after the Shanghai Marathon. That ride was 37.5 km (23.3 miles) at night and pretty cold. This ride would start out at 6:45 am. We would ride out to the Mudu bridge to meet the group to start the ride. It would be about a 42 km (26.3 miles) just to the mountain. Once at the mountain we would ride another 10 km (6.2 miles) up and down hill. Then we would ride another 42 km (26.3 miles) home. The day would be a total of 94 km (58.8 miles) of riding.

Since we start so early, there really isn't much time for breakfast. Breakfast is usually on the run and consists of one or two granola bars. This time we stopped at one of the local hole in the wall and bought some buns. The buns had meat inside and were a very good snack to keep the energy reserves up for all the riding.

After our snack, we keep riding until we reached the mountain. We would ride out to Yu Yang Shan. I am not sure what temperature we were riding in, but it was sure pretty cold. The whole group was dressed in winter gear. I am the second to the last guy on the right hand side.

The mountain has a very nice, but very steep road to climb to the top. It also has some trails which can be used to climb all the way to the top. Some riders chose the trails to climb to the top and others chose the road. My fitness level for biking climbing isn't up to par yet. I had not ridden a off-road since October and decided I would stay on the path.

Here I am in full winter gear. I felt like I was on the wrong bike. Maybe I needed a Harley. Behind me is Tai Hu. It is one of the largest lakes I have seen in China. My buddy Xu Pei decided to take the trails to go down. He is a pretty good rider and was actually riding one of the other guy's bike that had a few problems with the shock.

This type of riding can become an all day event. We would go up and down the mountain a few times before lunch. After lunch come back for more climbing and then go home. Three of us decided to call it an early day and head out for an early lunch before heading home. We stopped at a local restaurant 香满楼酒家 (Xiang Man Lou Jiu Jia) close to Tai Hu.

Between the three of us we would eat five dishes. It would cost a total of 75 RMB ($10.95 US). The food was good for the price. We would eat an egg and tomato dish, a beef dish, a green vegetable dish, noodles, and a sweet and sour pork. See below:

As we returned home, we noticed a Suzhou in-line skating park. This park is located close to the Suzhou Stadium. We went inside to have a look and saw an instructor teaching kids how to race around the track. Looks pretty fun. I will have to investigate and see when it would be open to the public to use. I was thinking of taking the whole family for some skating fun.

All in all the weather turned out to be pretty nice and we enjoyed this long ride. I am looking forward to next weekend's ride. I am sure it will be cold, but I will have to stay in shape over the winter.

Engineering Dinner

Every year we hold an engineering dinner for all the Engineers who work in our department. This dinner is sponsored by the Engineering Managers. This year we went to the same restaurant as last year; however, we would have a karaoke to sing some songs.

The dinner had many local Chinese dishes including two dishes which I thought I would post here. The first dish is duck tongue. The first time I had this dish almost two years ago, I just ate it without asking what I was eating. I knew it was something exotic for me, but i was willing to try it. For me, this dish really has no taste so I do not particularly eat it anymore. If it was the only dish available, I would eat it.

The second dish was a crab. I have eaten crab many times and I really enjoyed this dish. The only problem was there was no tools available to break the shell. This had to be done with one's mouth. It was actually a little messy, but very nice to taste.

After our wonderful team dinner, the cheers would start. Last year our table was slowly approached by many different engineers wanted to drink a cup with of us and of course, it was always bottoms up. We ended up drinking quite a few glasses of beer. This year, the strategy changed. We would go as a group to drink with all the engineers at each table. This would limit our consumption of alcohol throughout the night.

We would also have some karaoke fun and various of our team members would get up and sing Chinese songs and also a few English songs. We actually have many good singers on our engineering team. I am just a terrible singer and would have to sing from my seat. I would probably have scared many people if I had tried to sing.

It was a wonderful dinner and a nice get together for all of us. I would like to thank all our engineers who have worked with us this year. Thanks for all your hard work and effort. Keep up the good work!

More on Food

I really don't want this to seem like a food blog, but it seems that due to the economic recession, I find my self eating more than exercising. This change in activities probably also has to do with the end of my marathon season and the cold weather.

Last Sunday, we decided to go out for dinner. I had decided that we would have Chinese food and we would try a new restaurant. Well, it would be a new restaurant for the family, because I had eaten there before. The restaurant 美美 (MeiMei) is located near 金鸡湖 (Jinji Hu) in 李公堤 (Ligong Di). It has very good food, but is a little pricey. The price is probably due to the location and also the elegance of the restaurant inside.

We would start of with a few Shanghai steamed buns. These are very delicious and are meat filled. It is advised to put them in your spoon and cut a small hole to let all the hot steam out. Then you can slowly devour the bun. The juice of the bun should be left in the spoon for a nice last savor of the bun. We actually ordered two baskets. My son loves this type of bun.

The next dish was a pineapple prawn dish similar to a sweet and sour dish. it is very delicious and I ordered this dish for mainly for my son. He still likes western looking dishes.

Then our only meat dish arrived. It is like a steak with a mixture of green beans and what I thought were potatoes. They were not potatoes. The beans and the steak were very good in this dish.

We would order spring rolls and a vegetable plate. This plate is our common broccoli plate, but cooked in a special sauce. Very nicely done.

The final dish to arrive was a spicy Sichuan fish. This fish was served with no bones. The meat was already cut and placed over some tofu. It was spicy and had a lip numbing effect. My son actually tried two pieces of this fish and liked it, but said it was too spicy.

All in all it was a very good dinner. My son actually tried everything on the table and has asked when will we return to eat at MeiMei. The total cost for the seven dishes including the spring rolls was under 280 RMB ($35.66 US). Not bad for an elegant dining experience.

Another Good Lunch

After walking along the gardens, your stomach starts to make some funny sounds. It means that lunch is approaching and its time to go. Today we would go to Tan Xiang Shan （坛香膳）to eat lunch. I like the food served at this restaurant.

We would start with a very delicious pork and green peppers dish. This dish was very delicious and we finished the whole dish.

I always like to choose a green vegetable to eat. I forgot the English name for this vegetable. There were three different cooking methods for the vegetables on the menu. All were in Chinese, so I just pointed to one cooking method and it actually turned out to be cooked how I like them.

This dish is similar to the sweet and sour pork we are used to in the United States, but at this restaurant it is called pork in tomato sauce. It is a very delicious dish and probably a dish that a westerner would be very comfortable eating. We also ordered a fried rice Yangtze style and then the main dish below.

This dish is the Spicy Mandarin Fish. We completely devoured this fish. The fish was so spicy it would open up your nasal passages and leave your mouth numb. I love to see the colorful peppers. We usually choose the Mandarin fish because it has fewer bones and is much easier to eat cooked as a whole fish. Some of the other fresh water fishes have many bones and are very difficult to eat. If you like spicy food, I recommend you try this fish.

For five dishes we paid 189 RMB ($27.59 US). This meal is actually a little expensive for China, but I have to say the most expensive dish was the fish and it alone was close to 100 RMB, but it was the most enjoyable dish.

Chinese Lunch

I haven't posted anything on food. Well, one of the things one must do when coming to China is try the food. This activity becomes very interesting due to the hundreds of dishes wish can be found in China.

When I first arrived in China, I was weary of trying so many different things. I was a very finicky eater. I would only try things I really like and I was not open to new things as far as food is concerned. I would have to give up this fear of new food and begin and adventure in eating.

My first meals in China mainly consisted of vegetables. I learned to eat as many different vegetables as I could, but I can not live off of vegetables alone. I begin to taste many different things. Hunger makes you try different foods. I can eat alot of different dishes and now, even the things I did not like in the states, I try.

For my Mom's first Chinese lunch we took her to Jia Wang （嘉旺茶餐厅）. This restaurant is in SIP and it is always very crowded during the lunch hour. It is a restaurant that has a bunch of delicious food. There is an English menu, but it is not a complete menu. Some of the most delicious dishes are on the Chinese menu. The food is fairly tame and easily appeals to any one's taste. For starters, I like to have one of the delicious sweet breads with a cold milk tea.

The first dish for lunch was a simple beef noodle dish in XO sauce. My friend Elva recommended this dish and she was correct, It was very delicious.

The next dish was also fairly simple. It was the mixed vegetable dish. It contains vegetables seen in the west like carrots, sweet peas, and cucumbers as well as lotus petals, fungus, lotus root, and a few other things.

We ordered one meat dish. the meat dish was a simple barbecue pork ribs. It is also delicious. Jia Wang has a whole sheet on the menu dedicated to barbecue. I recommend trying different dishes each time you go to see what your favorite will be.

One of my favorite dishes is the skillet egg plant with pork. This dish is served very, very hot. It is meant to be eaten hot. When it gets cold, it is not very tasty at all. It is very delicious and probably not a healthy vegetable meal with all the oil involved in the cooking.

If your ever in Suzhou, please check out Jia Wang （嘉旺茶餐厅）. It has delicious food at an excellent price.