Let’s take a look shall we?

Product: Nature Valley granola bars

Country of origin: USA

The label says better if used by [string of undecipherable dot matrix print code]. Uhhh…”better”? So after that unrecognizable date they only become “good”? They were never “best”? It would actually be “best” if they wrote “better eat these by…or else we’ll come and break your flower power face ya dirty granola bar munchin hippy scum!”

Product: Sapporo lager beer

Country of origin: Japan (note this is the real deal import, not that bathtub domestic crap that’s made in Wuhan).

On the bottom we have more hardly readable dot matrix print. This time it’s some lovely Japanese kanji characters, followed by years and a months. I can only hope that the date that is already past was the production date, and the future date is the expiry, because if it’s the other way around…man oh man have those crazy japs got some funky time travel shit going on. I wouldn’t put it past em. “SAPPORO BEER: ACQUIRES YOUR GREAT ENJOYMENT, BEYOND THE FUTURE!”

Product: San Marcos green Mexican salsa

Country of origin: Mexico

Oh Mexico, way to keep it qua-li-ty. But honestly, who really cares if the expiry date is worn off? It’s not like anyone has ever got sick eating something from within your secure and sanitary borders.

Product: Barilla basillico tomato sauce

Country of origin: Italy

A six digit number, the letter B in brackets, and then what is obviously a date of some kind. The Italians have left us a little riddle wrapped in an enigma, for the digits are all lower than 12, meaning who knows which one is the month, the day or the year. Italians are clever like that. They always want to keep you guessing, even when it comes to whether you might get food poisoning from their tomato sauce.

Product: Marks and Spencer mayonnaise

Country of origin: England

Not sure why this M&S Mayo advertises a new recipe, when in fact it tastes like glue made from horses. The BB is probably short for bloody bollocks, exactly what I would say, if I was British and trying to read this expiry date on a cold rainy afternoon in Manchester. Now maybe it’s just me, and I’m a big idiot, but I read that expiry date as January 11^th 9:31pm. Good to know, because I like to be precise to the minute when it comes to not eating expired mayo. But what bloody year? Uh oh, I get it now, it’s really January 2011. But then what bloody day? I mean, it could go bad on the 1^st of January, and then that’s fine, but what happens if it’s not until the 31^st? I certainly wouldn’t want to waste a spoonful of precious mayo that could go with some delicious Belgian cut fries.

Product: Shao Feng spicy oil pepper sauce

Country of origin: China

It may be a little daunting because it’s in Chinese characters, but if you can remember the ones you need to know, it’s always the same. 保质期 is the duration of time after it was produced that it’s safe to eat (here being 18 months). 生产日期 is the date it was produced on (here being January 11^th 2010). It sure is nice that they’ve gone and printed the expiry date with all the rest of the static info that never changes right on the label. Must cost a lot to have to print a new label for every day of production. I sure hope they don’t cut any costs…naw what am I thinking…a Chinese company would never do that.

Thankfully for imported products, China has strict label laws that require the ingredients, date of production, origin, etc. to be printed in Chinese, and it always clearly tells you when the stuff expires (sometimes almost too strict, because the Chinese label covers up the original nutritional information). So in effect this post was redundant, so let’s all go eat some Belgian fries with unexpired mayo.

Forget about ingredient lists, just follow these steps and if you don’t have what they call for, pretend you lost your eyesight in a fistfight with a toucan, and grab whatever powdery substance you can find. I know you’re worried about Chaos theory and where your cat is, but these things and making edibles go hand in hand.

STEP 1

Take the license plates off your car, head to the nearest Williams Sonoma, and pillage it like you’re the damn omega man. Don’t ask questions, just do it. In the apocalypse, survival is key, and you’ll need all the measuring cups, pots and waffle irons you can get to ward of those shitty mutants.

Step 2

Get home and get your shit straight son. Unpack that waffle iron, plug it in immediately and leave it on as long as possible. This prodigal use of electricity will help burn off any remnants of finger prints or booger grease from the third world kid who assembled it and might contribute to us having a warmer summer next year.

STEP 3

Get a big bowl and put it off camera. Then take a measuring cup and fill it with 1 CUP of perfect white flour. If you’re a real man, you’ll mill that grain yourself. Those who bring up the topic of whole wheat or organic flour will find themselves on the ingredient list. These are John Wayne’s waffles not Elton John’s. Oh and as you’ve already noticed, I’ll be using imperial units, so all you base ten metric lovin motherfuckers can learn to convert and use an anachronistic system of measurement with no discernable logic and grow some fuckin balls while your at it.

STEP 4

After you throw that flour into the bowl without making your work area look like a a Columbian drug lab, grab some baking powder, and add two teaspoons of that magic dust in. Once again we’re making waffles here, not crack cocaine, so use powder, NOT soda. If you do use soda to make them, I hope you do smoke crack, cause that’s the only way you’ll be able to handle the overpowering taste of pure ass that’ll make you loco.

STEP 5

Half a teaspoon of salt is what you want to drop in there next. At the risk of being labeled an anti-semite I’d advise to stay away from that Kosher variety, unless you like chunks of saltiness t-bagging your tongue. It’s best if you slide by McDonalds, jack a shaker or two and use that. Ronald won’t mind, that slut’s busy molesting your neighbor’s kids.

STEP 6

Now comes the tricky part. So it would be best to get some tricks to do it for you. You’ll need four large and crazy eggs. Get crackin, but separate the whites from the rest segregation style. The yolks can straight in with everything else. Hide the whites someplace where little insects and birds won’t be able to go for a swim.

STEP 7

For this step, take two tablespoons of the sweetest sugar you can find and half a teaspoon of purest vanilla extract ever to be extracted to the mix. Then quickly run to your local cow, grab up on those titties and milk yourself two cups of freshness. Get back before the farmer realizes you violated his cow and dump that in there too. I don’t care if you’re lactose intolerant and real milk will leave looking like a fucking hobbit. Don’t even think of putting any of soy based wank in there.

STEP 8

Take half a stick of butter, and using the power of modern science and technology, nuke that son of a bitch down to liquid form. Try as hard as you can NOT to drink the whole thing down because it smells so delicious, and pour it into the main bowl.

STEP 9

Go find those egg whites you hid, and using a blender, or a good ol fashioned beater, beat them like a punk ass bitch. This is essential to give the waffles that light airy feeling like they came straight from an oven in heaven with cute little flying kittens and puppies and harp music, and JESUS would you hurry up and just beat those bloody things!?!

STEP 10

Once again with the beater, but preferably your bare fist or maybe even a properly sequenced tornado of round house kicks, blend the contents of the main bowl into a mélange of magic. Then pour the egg whites in there and mix some more. MIX until your goddamn hand falls off, and rats come along and eat it, and then other rats come and eat those rats.

STEP 11

If you’re a conservative pour a conservative amount of waffle batter onto the waffle iron. If you’re a pussy ass liberal, pour a liberal amount. Then like a bleeding heart bitch, scurry off to cry or write poetry about pictures of dogs when this happens:

Keep cooking them waffles until the steam coming from the iron slows down. If the steam coming from the iron doesn’t slow down, but instead increases and turns black, return to step 2.

STEP 12

Waffles need syrup like a pimp needs hoes. Using anything other than 100% real maple syrup would be just plain…ridiculous. Any bottle of “syrup” emblazoned with a crude image of a negro that looks like it belongs in another era, probably does. Toss that ooze out the window and hope it falls through the time warp that it came from. Then for about half second bask in the golden irony that some megacorp manufactures fake food from subsidized corn and then uses the image of a group it oppresses as a brand name. Not too long now, them waffles gonna get cold.

STEP 13

Remove the waffle from the iron and sprinkle on some icing sugar to make it look like you know what you’re doing. Add the syrup. Then proceed to inhale that waffle with the power of some 23 inch spinners and a bottle of crystal. Because you’ve earned it; trying to figure out how to make waffles, while taking pictures along the way to show a bunch of randoms on the internet how to do something they probably would be better off doing without your wack advice.

I’m writing this for people living in Qingdao, people visiting Qingdao, and most importantly myself because I can never figure out what I want to eat. Chinese food is good. There’s no question there. The problem is that eating out is a group thing. The best restaurants are made for 4+ people. You know, the big round tables with the lazy susannes spinning, zhongnanhai’s gettin up in ya lungs and white liquor going straight to the cerebral cortex. Sure you can still go to these places by yourself or with a friend, but the dishes are all big mofos and you can’t get a whole lot of styles in your order unless you plan on wasting a load of food. So I’ve put together this list of western food joints that Qingdao has. It is divided into two parts. Places that suck balls and places that don’t. My list will feature ISO9000 approved point form rational to make your selection fast and efficient. And yeah I know there’s the redstar and Qingdao guide websites that will show you where they are, but they don’t list some, and they sure as shit don’t tell you if the ones listed are any good.

Places that suck the kahck

Sumo Sushi

• Absurdly expensive sushi, think 25 kuai for one piece the size of a baby’s toe.
• Serious case of the mei-you’s*
• Service is probably the worst I’ve ever experienced in Qingdao, took close to an hour to get our appetizer despite seeing other people who came in after us get theirs much earlier. We had to sit at the bar because other tables were supposedly reserved; yet no one sat at the tables over the 2-hour course of our meal. Waitresses didn’t understand CHINESE. This is because it’s 100% Japanese owned and operated, and even the waitresses are Japanese. BUT this is CHINA retards. If I were Chinese I would come back to this place with a canteen of gas.
• In fact if you go to this place and give them your hard earned loot, you might as well just pay someone to urinate in your mouth while you sleep. It’s the same.
• Also the food sucked.

Murano

• Unless there’s another place that serves ‘53 Margaux like it’s going out of style this is the most expensive restaurant in Qingdao.
• Pasta tastes about as good as I could make it, which means…bleah
• Service is about on par with any other western place, and considering the price of everything plus the service charge, they should be giving you the soufflé special in the back room for what you end up paying.

Bamboo

• The only so-called thai restaurant in town.
• Food is expensive considering what it is. (30-40 kuai a dish)
• All the dishes taste really bland and not spicy, which is pretty much the exact opposite of real thai food.
• Service is anemic.

Napoli

• Advertises as a wine bar/italian restaurant but inside there is no bar whatsoever
• Pastas start at 80 kuai and taste no better than Chef Boyardi’s bastard child
• I’ve heard from a former employee they reuse food. Nuff said.

Sunshine Grill

• Lots of expensive steaks that can be had elsewhere for less.
• Horribly nasty all you can eat lunch buffet for 100 or is it 120 kuai?
• Pretty much everything else on their menu looks like it’s dying from the bubonic plague.

TJ’s Mexican Food

• This place is to Mexican food as a drunken midget is to porn.
• Prices are reasonable, if you like eating chili powder with a small side of food.
• The Nachos are the only redeeming thing on the menu, otherwise, everything else tastes exactly the same.
• Seriously…to the owner of this place…if you want to see how a Mexican restaurant is done, go to Cantina Agave in Shanghai. Case closed.

Sorrento’s Pizza/JJ’s Pizza/Farmer’s Pizza

• These Korean run pizza places don’t really suck so bad, but the pizza is pretty bad compared to proper North American pizza.
• They all use whack ingredients, and shit quality cheese.
• JJ’s uses excessively sweet tomato sauce.
• Farmer’s uses almost no sauce.
• But they all deliver so that’s all they’re good for.

Vietnamese Restaurant in Hisense Shopping Mall (In the basement level)

• Unreasonably expensive for Vietnamese food, but I guess they have to pay the stupid rent to be in the Hisense mall somehow.
• Considering the price, you would think they could have decent sized portions, but no, the pho bowls were all sized for toddlers. Come on man, it’s just noodles!
• The spring rolls were pretty tasty.
• Most of the menu is just Chinese food, or Vietnamese dishes that have been sinofied.
• You have to ask for hot sauce and oyster sauce…umm hello?
• Try it once if you must, but Yueyuxuan in HKGardens has better tasting pho, and is like a third the price.

Places that DON’T SUCK (In order of awesomeness with the slackers at the bottom)

Trattoria Verde

• Best Italian food in Qingdao hands down.
• The place is small and is always packed so make a reservation or you won’t get in.
• The kitchen is open at the back so you can see the work of the Japanese chef on the go, he’s super friendly and takes care of his customers.
• Prices were once reasonable (Cheaper than Napoli and Murano), but have now inflated to borderline unacceptable levels. Think about a 63% increase in some dishes, that’s even higher than the crazy 10% national inflation rate.
• The most of the specials here are seafood dishes, although you can get steaks and the standard but still delicious pasta plates.
• Ironic that the best Italian food in Qingdao is being cooked by a Japanese chef, while the restaurants with supposed Italian chefs are mostly garbaggio.
• Phone number: (+86 532) 8589-8530
• Address: 100 Shanghang Lu

Cassini’s

• Runner up to best Italian food.
• Recently I’ve been enjoying this place more and more, prices are stable, unlike other establishments, and they’ve got the real deal gelato going on.
• Atmosphere upstairs is Modern, and more spacious than than Tratoria.
• Lots of options, from pizza and sandwiches to full mains. Everything I’ve tried has been tasty.
• Although the owners/chefs seem alright, the waitstaff could be better. Right now I would say it’s just average for China, and if you know, that ain’t great. If it were to improve I think Cassini’s could take the #1 spot.

The Greenery Cafe

• This Guangzhou based chain has a clean and modern interior.
• Similar to Chalon, with lots of western based dishes. Prices are better though. And the food quality seems a bit better too.
• Lunches are a good deal with a healthy sized main dish and dessert for 18-25rmb
• They charge a 2rmb seating fee per person, which although insignificant, would become a serious pain in the ass if its occurrence propagated among middle market restaurants here.
• Located in the mess of a building on the other-side of the street facing Crown Plaza, on the second floor.

Story Desserts

• Interestingly decorated place that focuses on desserts, coffee and vino.
• Desserts are the best I’ve had in Qingdao
• Owner/Managers actually care and listen to their clientele.
• Open long hours from 11am-11pm so it’s good when that sweet

tooth needs a fix late in the evening.

• Located in the old location of Banana bar right next to Amy’s Bakery, on the little street that runs behind Feelings Nightclub.

Chi Nuan Lian Izakaya

• Best Japanese Izakaya in Qingdao.
• Open till 1 or 2am usually.
• Not cheap, but not too expensive depending on what you get.
• Super special udon and soba recipes that the Japanese chef stole from a samurai ninja warrior right before he chopped off his head with a ginsu sushi knife.
• Like two doors over from LeBang, wooden exterior, and you’ll know you’re there when a life size ULTRAMAN greets you at the door.
• 19 Chenghai Yi Lu. Phone 8593 5719.

Fatema Indian

• Very tasty Indian food.
• Good variety of dishes.
• But ssssssssssssslllllllllloooooooow.
• Also a little on the pricier side. (250 kuai for 2 people). But they were up till recently the only Indian place in Qingdao thus they had monopoly control and very well could have been feeding us PEOPLE dressed up as Indian food.

Barocook

• Very cheap Korean fast food.
• I enjoy the chicken burgers or toasted sandwiches for 7-9rmb, also massive chicken cutlet for only 25rmb.
• Open late on weekends.

LeBang

• Two for one pizzas on Sundays is good, but I’ve since eaten one too many.
• Sandwiches are also good.
• Prices are reasonable but have been slowly creeping upwards just like everywhere else.
• The bar has a good selection of Pernod and Vodka, and that’s all me needs.

Pyongyang

• A NORTH KOREAN restaurant.
• Real live North Koreans serve you food. But don’t trip over the chains attached to their legs.
• Pretty much tastes like any other Korean food place, but with a novelty factor to the power of 63.
• See my previous post on it here.

Yueyuxuan (越饫轩)

• Good Vietnamese food in Qingdao.
• The only Vietnamese food in Qingdao.
• Pretty cheap considering its “exoticness”.
• It’s on Zhangzhou Er Lu (66 hao) in HK garden very close to Baskin Robbins.

Celena’s Chocolate Bar

• Cafe/dessert place located in the Aushotel at Yan’an Rd. and Hong Kong West Rd.
• Very clean and modern design. What this actually translates into is chairs that feel like they’re going to launch into space.
• Prices are expensive and portions are small, so basically you’re just paying to be on the set of 2001 Space Odyssey.
• Japanese fashion magazines brought back memories of Doll’s Kitchen…unfortunately they didn’t have Egg.
• The food itself? The chocolate is all top notch quality. The waffles were a bit on the sweet side for my tastes, not to mention doused in chocolate sauce, but if you like sweet things, you can’t go wrong here.

Monnemer Eck

• German/Bavarian what have you, I don’t know?
• Has lots of sausages and potatoes.
• Good German beer on tap that’s a nice switch from Tsingtao.
• Prices are good, maybe 50 kuai/person.
• German people are friendly when they’re drunk.

May 4th Diner

• It isn’t a diner.
• But it does serve food that can be very tasty.
• And sometimes not so tasty
• And sometimes the service is very good
• And sometimes the waiters have their heads stuck up their asses they resemble popple dolls from the 80’s.
• But more often than not it’s still pretty good.

JUSCO

• Jusco is a large mall type complex on Hong Kong middle road at Fuzhou South Road.
• It is owned by a Japanese corporation, and as such is filled with a cornucopia of Japanese products and restaurants.
• In it, you will find some good Japanese restaurants all priced very reasonably.
• Be warned however, Jusco also contains an outpost of the unholy army of Ronald McDonald, and a food court that is most certainly owned and operated by MSG companies.

Japanese restaurant across from DaNiang dumplings 2nd floor jusco

• My new favorite place inside of Jusco.
• Very good quality pork cutlets, and more food than you can handle for 25-40rmb.
• Never too busy, so it sure as hell beats standing in line for Aijisen.

Aijisen(in jusco)

• Ubiquitous Japanese noodle chain restaurant.
• Very cheap.
• Usually decent tasting but not amazing.
• Usually pretty fast unless you order something unusual, like deep-fried squid infused with goose liver flown in from the Bermuda triangle.

Japanese place opposite McDo’s in Jusco (Sorry can’t remember name)

• Interesting pancake/burger like things that I can’t really describe.
• Cheap and will fill you up.
• Very tasty potatoes.
• Supposedly Osaka style according to my friend…who’s from Osaka.

Istanbul - Turkish in food court of IGO

• Good Turkish food.
• Very cheap.
• You have to get one of those stupid payment cards to buy food there.
• The location is so absurd for this type of place it’s sure to be bankrupt in a matter of months.
• The chef is Turkish, but can only speak Turkish and German, no English, which makes me wonder how the hell he gets along in this country considering the only two languages spoken are Mandarin and English.

Chalon(in jusco)

• Japanese western food, made by Chinese people.
• Lots of meats that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
• Very consistent quality and service.
• Good fall back plan when nothing else suits.

Kalinka’s

• Russian place behind mykal.
• Food is decent. Although I can’t say I’m really into Russian food.
• They used to (or may still have) 30rmb lunches that were very good and were like 4 courses.

Pasta Fresca Al Salvatore

• Italian food.
• Best pizza I’ve had in Qingdao so far, although that isn’t saying much, it was still up to Dominos level.
• Prices were about the same as Napoli or LaVilla so think about 100-150 per person.
• Didn’t try the Pasta, but I’ve heard it’s decent.
• For some reason it always seems empty.

LaLuna

• Italian/French type food.
• Service was good, food was good.
• Price was a bit cheaper than its sucky counterparts.
• Might not be open anymore because the mob might have shut it down in a gangbanger shootout where the french owner was heard yelling “SACRE BLUE!” before transmuting into a frog and hopping to his safety???
• update: definitely no more

Your Mom’s Place

• I love home cooking.

I will also be adding and updating to this list as I remember and try out places, or when I get really bored.

* For those that don’t know the mei-you’s or 没有 is what the waitress says when they don’t have what you want. It literally means, “no-have”. Normally excusable, it can get uber-frustrating as often half the things on the menu will be mei-yous. I can deal with it at Chinese places because they all have like 300 items on their damned menu, but when it happens at a supposedly upscale western restaurant…heads roll.

Japan is world renowned for being oddly unique. I mean, when you ask the average 20 somethin guy in America what he knows about Japan, he’ll probably mention used panty vending machines, tentacle rape anime and game shows where the object is to humiliate the contestants in the most bizarre way possible. With this in mind, whenever I go to Japan, I’m always on the lookout for that kind of wacky shit, but to my dismay, all I encounter are staid salary men, surgically clean cities made up from a limited number of grey rectangular shapes and organization that would fill a Teutonic engineer with jealous rage.

So there I was, minding my business in the magazine section of Yodobashi Camera, eyes shifting from one fashion magazine to the next. All of the sudden a giant bacon cheese burger jumped at me from amongst the litany of glossy men dressed in painted on jeans. No really. It was an actual magazine devoted entirely to the divine creation that is the burger. The mag was called “别册Lightning”, it’s a magazine that thoroughly covers different topics every issue like Hawaiian shirts, old tennis shoes, and vans with pop-up roofs. Sandwiched in between its pages were some photos so thick and juicy, if food porn exists, this perfect 10. This mag was so deliciously awesome I decided to scan a few of the pictures to give an idea of how much ass it kicks.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the Japanese are pros when it comes to taking something the West does and doing it even better. I’d get lynched if I said another country did burgers better than the States, but damn, just look at these pictures and tell me with a straight face that the Japanese can’t cook a tasty burger.

The cover. In America if they had a cover like this there’d be lawsuits from people trying to eat the damn thing.

Don’t forget the French fries…

After reading this post I predict you will do one of two things:

A) Run to your nearest grocery store/butcher/farm and get you some beef.
B) Become a vegan.

[update: sept 1 2009] Just stumbled across this beautifully mouth watering website with hilarious vocals.

Ha! Too bad you can’t read any of it. I know the clever ones will quickly jump to Google Language tools to get some sweet machine translation action going on, so I’ll save you the trouble by posting it below. You’ll notice that it seems to start off well, but as with all my creations, things quickly go south.

My favorite Chinese dishes
Now I do not have a favorite Chinese dishes, but I have a favorite type of cuisine. I think China could very good barbecue is good some West dishes. Last year I came to China. After a night to a bar, my friend introduced me, a simple food. Immediately I really like the. It’s still a little bit of fresh taste very hot. Many foreigners do not like spicy food. But I like spicy food because my mother is Burmese she done me a lot of spicy dishes. Another reason why I like barbecues… Very cheap. I could go in the restaurant barbecues, food, drink beer and only spent 20 yuan. Barbecues in Canada is also very tasty but too expensive.

When I eat barbecue I never buy: 10 Series lamb, five strings of meat, two strings of garlic, a bread, and a bottle of Tsingtao or Gill. Occasionally I buy: String potatoes, pork Series, and rice. Rare Series with my children I drank pot liquor. I know your thinking, you think I am crazy. On! I am crazy.

When I and my friends eat barbecue, we have to the same restaurant. I just do not know its name, but there are very good food. Because there Qingdao Olympic Therefore, the government should close down the restaurant. They think that the restaurant too soiled. Wrong! They are not clever. I think this restaurant no problem. You! The barbecue restaurants continue to open the door because they increased.

I heard barbecues from the Xinjiang best. I do not know if my information on or wrong, whether I intend to Xinjiang to eat there very famous skewers infants. I ask you to join!


Funny thing is, most people don’t actually eat them, just the act of giving them is part of the tradition. In fact once upon a time some enterprising individuals repacked some old mooncakes from previous years and sold them anew. They would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for some meddling foreigners who happened to eat them only to later to be found dried and curled up in the fetal position off Hong Kong Road. Moral of the story, if Chinese people don’t eat it, neither should you. A good idea would be to bake some of your own fake mooncakes and carry them around with you this time of the year, and when you’ve found yourself in a situation where people are expecting you to eat pull the old switcheroo.

So today being the mooncake festival, I’ve decided to combine two important chinese traditions, fireworks and mooncakes. Unfortunately, I don’t have any fireworks, so my microwave will have to suffice. You’ll notice that there are two Chinese characters formed into the top. They roughly translate to “xiang chun” which in your English equates to a surgeons general’s warning about cancer and other ailments. What begins as an attractive looking hockey puck slowly transforms after being bombarded by the nuclear rays of my high powered microwave. After 5 minutes of a internal searing, the little plastic dish the cake came in has melted flat and there’s plume of smoke billowing out of a rupture in the center. My apartment now smells of vaporized ass death. Here are some pics.

Some would say I have to much time on my hands. I would disagree, in fact I don’t have nearly enough time to conduct all the microwave-pastry experiments I have lined up. You can’t argue with science, or ironically, death.

The greatest thing about this whole mooncake worshipping deal is that no one is around, the city I’m in is as dead the body in my freezer. I assume all the Chinese people have gone out to the country to some big pit for a ritualistic mooncake burial.

Another interesting yet pointless fact: I wrote this entire post on my cellphone while waiting for my steak and noodles in a deserted restaurant. Also I made the whole thing up, except for the part about me traveling back in time and saving all the puppies from the Titanic. Oh, and that 50 cent mooncake really did get incinerated.

I met up with my friends at the Jusco, where they instructed me that we would be going to a Korean restaurant not too far away. This was highly logical because my friend who was taking us out was Korean. After a brief walk, we made it to the restaurant street, which is an area in Qingdao highly populated with erotic cake stores….mmm erotic cakes… actually…wait, that’s a different street, this one has restaurants on it. We arrived at the anomalous Korean establishment, defiant against the perpetual clones of seafood joints flanking it. Inside, I was introduced to my classmate’s older brother, younger brother, sister and maid. Before you ask, I don’t know. As soon as I sat down, a large bottle filled with an ominous liquid was being liberally poured into everyone’s glass and I had the fortuity of a seat next to older bro, who was doing the pouring. I quickly learned two things. One; always have food in your stomach before going to a restaurant where you might be drinking. Two; it’s ok to not completely down your mini-glass of liquor in one shot. It took me about four consecutive rounds to learn the later. As soon as your bottom’s up, you refill and toast again, it’s an unending cycle.

My liver’s torment was vanquished by the efficiency of the waitresses, who brought us our dinner. Kimchi, pig’s blood rolls, bulgogi, you know, the usual Korean treats. In between my furious attempt at sheltering my stomach from what would soon be an assault of baijiu (a Chinese liquor that it is also used as jet fuel) courtesy of big bro, I happened to notice something curious about the waitresses. They were all wearing name tags with the North Korean flag emblazoned on them. Within seconds after I noticed this, an all girl band jumped out on stage and started blasting out what I assumed was Korean oldies. I quickly turned to my friend who spoke English, and I asked her for the low down. To my surprise and twisted delight, our waitresses and the band were all from North Korea! Now, there’s only two ways for them to be here in China. One would be escape from the land of the eternal president by crossing the most heavily fortified border on the planet. The other, and the way in which they were here, as my friend tried to explain, was that they came from the highest peerage of the North Korean aristocracy. Amazing. I was getting drunk while being entertained and fed by socialites from the axis of evil.

As the feast wore on, we were treated to traditional song and dance that was native to North Korea. For a few songs, one singer went all out, and big bro explained to me that this particular girl was one of the most popular singers in her homeland. After the performance was done, I had the opportunity to meet her and talk to her briefly, which blew my mind. Supposedly, every new years she sings for…Kim Jong-il the nuclear cowboy himself!

Ironically, though the girls were allowed out of their country, they weren’t allowed out of the restaurant. They also had to wear the funny ID tags, and a little pin just like George Bush wears, but instead of the American flag, it was Kim il-Sung’s face. I also noticed on all the TVs in the place, they were showing our goose-stepping buddies do their thing to patriotic background music. I could never unravel the riddle of why all of this was happening or what the occasion was, but it will be nice to scratch another item off my list.

I managed to take some shoddy pictures of the happening, but to make up for the poor quality I have shoddy videos too.

UPDATE: It appears I’m not the only one with a perverted interest in the Hermit Kingdom’s restaurants, so I hope it helps to mention that this restaurant is named “Pyongyang” (Pingrang in Chinese) and it’s located on Yunxiao Rd. between Mingjiang Rd. and Hong Kong Middle Rd. Not far from the Carrefour.

Also, I’ve managed to dig up some news on these places. Apparently many of the waitresses would rather be doing something else.

Tonight, I went on a date with one of my friends to Hot Pot. I have never been to such a restaurant, even though I’ve heard many a rave about how good this style of cuisine is. While no one is really certain where the hot pot concept came from, most scholars agree that it was likely the idea of some enterprising (read: lazy) chefs who decided it would just be easier to make the customers cook the food themselves. I dined at a Sichuan Hot Pot restaurant, which has it’s own unique style, or so I was told.

Hot pot cuisine consists of…..a hot pot. You go and pick the food you want to cook from one room, then the waiter brings a pot to your table that looks like a volcano surrounded by a moat. You cook the food in the moat. Sounds pretty simple eh? In theory, it would be quite simple, except for the westerner, the choices of food leave a little to be desired. Our picks were:

1. Mutton
2. Mini-Squids
3. Ink-Fish Balls
4. Gelatinous Duck Blood
5. Tripe
6. Finger Shellfish (that was just my name for them, cause thats what they looked like)

I would like to point out that these were the most appetizing things I could possibly select from the room with all the food. You know you’ve got a wealth of options when Duck Blood makes forth most viable plate. According to my friend, this was one of her favorites.

Luckily the mutton was decent, not great, but decent, especially when combined with the peanut butter and vinegar sauce you dip everything in. Yes, peanut butter and vinegar made it taste better. The minisquids were very chewy, so I avoided them after the first. The fish balls were kinda gooey, but I don’t really like eating fish, and I definitely don’t like eating balls. The duck blood was actually the sleeper, it tasted like a salty tofu, so not bad, but knowing what it really was brought down its flavor rating by 120%. I don’t eat friggin tripe. I only had one finger shellfish because there was too much brine in its taste, it’s eyeballs were popped out from being cooked, and I kept imagining them talking to me saying “EH Guv’nor!”

So here’s what I think about Hot Pot. Me cooking unknown seafood items is like playing Russian Roulette. But instead of a quick and painless demise, there’s a chance one of these shellfish fingerlings turns my stomach into a scene from a grindhouse flick. Not good. As such, I devised a clever set of strategies to deal with eating at these restaurants.

Avoiding Certain Death at Hot Pot Restaurants

• Order a large bottle of beer, and down said beer as fast as possible for courage.
• Continuously comment to your date/friends on how delicious the food is, and that you’ve never tried such “interesting” dishes before.
• Eat the mutton and side dish of noodles, and only after they’ve been dunked in the boiling water long enough to sterilize the 20 different strains of salmonella breeding on them.
• Inquire about the dishes people are eating at other tables even though they’re eating the exact same thing as you. While your friends are trying to figure this out, try and take as much of the other crap food and sink it in the pot like the freakin Titanic. Lucky for you the pot is deep, and everything but the fish balls deep six.
• Take a large leaf of lettuce and cover the fish balls. When someone asks you what the hell you’re doing, make up some lame excuse like the fish balls’ flavor is photosensitive, or they need sleep too. Pray that they forget they’re there.
• “Che Bao Le” Means: I’m full, lets get out of here before the finger shellfish start reciting Macbeth.
• Once your friend(s) are out of sight, hit the nearest McDonalds like a fat kid for the first time.

More pictures after the link.

Bubble bubble toil and trouble.

This isn’t tofu.

You can have any dish you want, as long as I don’t have to eat any of it.

I think the fumes from the Volcano were getting to me.

Jack’s Steakhouse, as it is called, appears to be a pretty new restaurant in an area full of other newish restaurants. The place is clean, and when you walk in you’re met with a gauntlet of “welcome to here” from the small platoon of staff crowded at the entry. After a quick perusal of the menu, I was satisfied I could afford it (the most expensive dish is a t-bone steak at 140RMB). I decided on a fillet mignon for 95RMB.

From my somewhat but not entirely limited experience eating beef in China, I have a theory that the chefs use Martian death rays to cook the cattle. I’ve come to this conclusion from ordering pieces of meat medium rare, and receiving the likes of a blackened shriveled turd on my plate. Sometimes I wonder if the chefs cook the meat right in the grill, and it gets to the point where they just randomly grab pieces of carbon to serve out. Fearing the worst, but also figuring that this is a steakhouse and they should have some kind of clue as to how to cook a steak, I decided to order what I normally order back home: rare.

My fears were not unfounded. The waiter brought me back a nice thick looking chunk of meat, with some pasta, and a less than straight heart-shaped fried egg. The waiter then asked if I wanted some peppercorn sauce, which I foolishly agreed to, because he then proceeded to try and drown my steak in a sea of black dotted grey goo. After parting the sauce like Moses, I began to cut into my steak and noticed that it started to bleed. A small stream of bloody juice came out from the cut. I cut it right in half, and the with the exception of small force field about a quarter inch around the steak of properly cooked goodness, the inside was completely red. Thinking to myself that they may have gotten it right, I cut a small piece from near the middle and proceeded to devour it. Wrong… The meat wasn’t cooked, in fact it was still cold. If this part of the cow was it’s mouth, it would have still been mooing. Because I had cut the thing in two, and it was doused in sauce, there was really no way for them to take it back to the kitchen and recook it. Also knowing that Chinese service follows are very steep curve, where generally they are very good, but if you get picky things go from bad to worse, I decided to take my chances with the abortion on my plate. I ate around the outside, and tried to eat the pasta that wasn’t doused in the cowjuice.

My overall experience at Jack’s Steakhouse in Qingdao was decent. The service was above par, the environment was clean and new and the prices were reasonable. The cut of meat itself wasn’t the greatest, but for the price you really can’t expect to get Chris Ruth’s quality here. I’ll say that I would definitely go back, providing I don’t die from E.coli first. I’ve included an asstacular cameraphone pic of the carcass.

On a side note, I found out that Justco has Pocky’s which are the best chocolate covered nut sticks in the world, and much better than the knock off Pepero’s that seem to be all the vogue here. Also, what is it with Milk here? I can understand that Chinese people really don’t drink it, but when the freshest milk the store carries expires tomorrow, and the older stuff……..well now you know why so many people get sick here. Thats my story and I’m sticking to it.