Scenes from Shanghai ~ a 24h layover

Even though I grew up in Asia and am Chinese by race, I have never travelled to China or even had the desire to visit. It was really through the nudging of the SO that I started to gain more interest in the country - he did a semester abroad in Beijing for law school and really enjoyed his time there. As such, when we booked our Asia flights, we made it a point to plan for a 24h layover in Shanghai. By the way, if you fly into Shanghai (Shanghai only, not Beijing etc), you can enter the country with a visa-on-arrival. Just go to the immigration guy and he will direct you to another window. This is important information as we were getting inconsistent information from the Visa website and airline representative (the latter being wrong!). Of course, always check back on the Visa website before you travel as requirements may change.

Unfortunately our stay in the city was short but thankfully we had some expat friends who just moved to Shanghai and were excited to show us around around time for just one night.

Nanjing Road is a long pedestrian road packed with lots of shops. Some compare it to a mini Times Square because of all the lights and action.

Across the river is a great view of the Pudong, just east of the Huangpu River. I guess you could call it the new city, as opposed to the historical part on the opposite side of the river – In any case, this is a great spot for a photo op.

Yuu Garden is a large garden in the middle of the city, with ponds, rockery, and my personal favorite, the cute little bazaar of narrow corridors that houses shops and food stalls such as the famous soup dumplings/XLB. The quail on a stick caught my eye, unfortunately I wished we hadn’t eaten at Din Tai Fung as I would have preferred to get this type of food instead of dining in a (chain) restaurant.

The next day, we took a walk around the hotel area in the French Concession area.

We stumbled upon a small local restaurant. Actually, it was the only dining place open at 9am, and we were desperate so we decided to give it a shot.

It’s a real small and non-fancy restaurant (Yi Jiayi (伊加伊)) with only locals inside. Thankfully they had English menus for us.

Condiments of chili, sesame oil and soy sauce - my favorite trio in Chinese cuisine.

Spring roll (I was craving them) were large sized, freshly fried and crunchy, and filled with meat and shredded cabbage. I’m such a sucker for good spring rolls & I thought these were pretty fresh.

Char siew pastry was a disappointment. I liked the flakey crust but the pastry needed some seasoning as it was terribly bland. Plus the barbeque pork was rather dry and not moist as I would expect.

Leek dumplings were tiny but there were a lot of them. There was definitely a higher wrapper to stuffing ratio, but I appreciated that the dumpling skin was moist and fairly tender.

Since we were in Shanghai, I had to test their XLB. It was disappointing as the skin was tough. But I didn't want to dwell too much on it as it was still better than not having had any.

Wonton soup with flat noodles was rather tasty. I liked the slippery flat noodles and the tiny wontons with a small ball of minced pork, but the best part was actually the flavorful broth.

This was by far the dish I was most excited and pleased about. Fried intestines! It was so tasty especially since the intestines were chewy (but not rubbery) and had that intense offal flavor and a fattiness to it. I ate the whole plate on my own. The intestines were stir fried with vegetables and a spicy black bean sauce.

This most definitely is considered a good Taiwanese restaurant in town by any means (in fact, I think it might be considered  fast food) but I am glad I got to sample a local joint and got my fill of intestines before we flew back to LA.

Scenes from Laos

The main purpose of our Asia trip was to visit Laos. Since we only took 6 days off from work and was already planning to spend half our trip in Singapore, we could only visit one Lao city. Vientiane is the capital of Laos and was our pick. It's a really laid back city, none of the hoards of motorcycles of HCM City or the upscale touristy beach resorts in Thailand. The prices here were great!

There aren’t much touristy sites in Vientiane- you mainly go there to chill out, relax and soak in a lovely country that is still fairly untouched by tourism and less commercialized than to its neighboring countries.

I recommend that you just walk around the night market, hop on a tuk tuk for a tour around the city or grab some seats at rooftop restaurant/bars such as Bor Pen Nang or Salana Hotel.

We also got a tuk tuk to drive 45 minutes away to floating restaurant on the river. I recommend it if you find that you would like to do and see more apart from the city.

Our hotel in Vientiane was the Salana Boutique Hotel, which I believe is one of the best hotels in the city as it is new and also centrally located just a few blocks from the river.

Now, on to the FOOD! I really enjoyed the breakfast buffet at the Salana, that was inclusive in the room price.

Pork porridge with spicy chili, fried anchovies, pickled radishes. This was my favorite part of the breakfast and some mornings, I had two servings. Love the crunch of the anchovies and the sour/spicy combination of the radishes.

Small selection of dim sum and some western picks including croissants.
They also had made to order eggs, pancakes, waffles and French toast.

After breakfast, we ventured out for more food!

Khop Chai Deu is a a fairly popular place, located in the Inthira Hotel, and has a courtyard and balcony seatingarea.

Mok pa ~ Chicken wrapped in banana leaf, with traditional Lao spice combination of lemongrass, shallots, garlic, fish sauce and fragrant kaffir lime leaves. Very good flavors despite the chicken looking so bland. It was served with a very very spicy sauce but also with cucumber slices to help lessen the heat.

Sticky rice is a popular staple, and was a good pairing for the mok pa.

Grilled liver was served with a very spicy grounded chili mixture - you can see those sneaky chili seeds. The waiter advised us to use it sparingly but even a little bit packed a lot of heat. I really enjoyed the well seasoned, simply grilled liver with the sticky rice and a smattering of chili.

Apart from restaurants, there was also abundant street food. On many streets, you can find vendors grilling up skewers, preparing noodles and local fried river fish.

Grilled gizzards skewers and some cold Beer Lao

Assortment of grilled Lao sausages and fish balls, served with a spicy sauce.

We stumbled upon Full Moon Cafe because it has A/C and I was dying from the sweltering heat and humidity. We ordered a traditional Lao dish - Spicy laarb with vermicelli noodles, ground meat and vegetables. We have been all over Asia but this was by far the spiciest dish we have had in years.

One of our favorite spots (which we went to twice a day) was Ban Lao, a beer garden.

We ordered the spareribs with deep fried spinach hen we were at Ban Lao. Not what I had hoped. I thought it would be deep fried spare riblets but it was actually pan fried.

Even though the SO is very adventurous and loves trying different cuisines, he was dying for some western food so we compromised- Beer Lao battered Fish & Chips from a restaurant called Sticky Fingers (love the name!). I liked the crispy yet fine texture of the breading, which had good seasoning to it too.

Overall, I feel that the Lao cuisine is a blend of flavors from its neighbors Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Vientiane is fairly small so we found ourselves hitting up some of the same restaurants/bar when we were there. Additionally, there is not an obvious restaurant/bar row so essentially, you will have to walk up and down various streets in search of food/drinks. But that's actually a good thing - it only means that Laos is still such a hidden gem.

Scenes from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I was excited to spend a day/night in Malaysia. Even though my dad is Malaysian and we used to spend Chinese New Years in Klang, a town just 20 miles from Kuala Lumpur where my dad grew up, I haven’t been back in 20 years and was curious to see how much the city has changed. When we landed in Malaysia, we dropped our bags off at the Grand Millennium Hotel located in Bukit Bintang area and went for a stroll around the neighborhood.

Bukit Bintang is a great place to stay because there is something for everyone in the area - there are shops nearby (good for tourists) but there are also a lot of bars and restaurants.

Some of the food that we ate in our short time there:

Chicken rice ~ This is the traditional chicken rice - plain boiled chicken (instead of the soy sauce version that I had in Singapore), served with a bowl of chicken broth, fragrant rice infused with chicken bones, and an array of condiments including dark soy sauce, chili and ginger garlic sauce.

Laksa is also another traditional dish that you can find in Singapore or Malaysia. A spicy coconut curry soup is filled with noodles, fish balls, fried tofu, fish cakes, shrimp, bean sprouts, and if you are lucky, cockles. 

After our meal, we headed to my favorite street Changkat Bukit Bintang that was lined with bars. So many to choose from.  Mainly westernized bars but they seem to attract tourists, expats as well as locals.

Post bar street food is the best thing ever, especially when you only need to walk over to the next street, Jalan Alor.

On our way to Jalan Alor, we stopped by a street food vendor that was grilling up corn on the sidewalk.

The corn smelt amazing and was dipped in a a savory spicy coconut sauce.

Over at Jalan Alor, the street is lined with many food stalls. Because it was 2am, I chose not to scarf down a big plate of food - just a little bite.

Soy sauce chicken wings

Satay ~ chicken and pork, with spicy peanut dipping sauce and served with cucumbers and raw onions. There is something about the chicken in Asia because their satay is always so juicy while the skewers sold in the States tend to be dry (even the dark meat).

Even though we were only in KL for a night, it definitely whet our appetite for the city and can't wait to come back again.

Singapore ~ Imperial Treasure

On our last day in Singapore, we met up with my dad’s friends who took us out to dinner at a Cantonese restaurant called Imperial Treasure located at Great World City. A. We were led into a private room where we proceeded to have a sort of tasting menu with a variety of dishes but that were served in small portions instead of the huge platter of food that you normally get at most Chinese restaurants.

First course ~ Appetizers that included shrimp toast, char siu/barbeque pork, crispy suckling pig and some unidentified fried vegetable. I really enjoyed the deep fried crispy shrimp toast which comprised of minced shrimp on top of a crispy toast that melted in your mouth.

 

Second course ~ braised fried tofu
Delicious morsel that was bursting with flavor when you bit into it- the SO was shocked that this was actually tofu because it was anything but bland.

Third course ~ razor clams

The clams were so fresh and went down your throat smoothly. They had a sweetness to it, and was cooked so simply in soy sauce and lots of garlic - so tasty!

 

Fourth course ~ Peking duck
Many locals say that Imperial Treasure has the best peking duck in the city, and I kindda agree. The duck looks so elegant on the plate with its long neck. The duck was presented to the table and carved tableside. 

The duck skin was perfectly crispy & crackling, with a thin layer of fat - we sprinkled a bit of sugar on it which was such a nice combination. The meat that the server carved out was lean yet very juicy. I appreciated that the duck was served in a thin crepe instead of a thick bun - when you are eating peking duck, you definitely don't want to fill up on carbs - it's all about that crispy skin.

Fifth course ~ dessert was mango pudding with sago/tapioca pearls. Not overly sweet.

Cantonese cuisine to me is typically rather heavy - usually I walk out of a Cantonese restaurant feeling stuffed and ODing on MSG. I liked that the food here was served in smaller portions and elegantly prepared. I enjoyed the peking duck - with the skin and meat served separately, it was like getting two dishes from one. Imperial Treasure apparently has a good dim sum luncheon as well.

Imperial Treasure

Great World City

1 Kim Seng Promenade

Singapore 237994

+65 6738 1238