Weekend update and food

Weekend
I am going to Xi’an this weekend with two GSB friends, Ian Chiu and Wu Shu, and one of Ian’s friends from HBS. Xi’an is an ancient capital of China in the central part of the country most famous for being the home of the Terracotta Warriors. In characteristic modesty, the Chinese Tourism Bureau says the Terracotta Warriors are the “most significant archaeological excavations of the 20^th century.” No more blog entries likely until Monday (China Time).

Food
I haven’t written much about food recently. But that is not because it has gotten less weird, more that I am somehow getting used to it. Earlier this week I went to a hotpot dinner – like the Chinese version of fondue, but weirder. We had some regular beef and lamb and shrimp, but then there was a bunch of stuff like cow stomach, some other cow parts in a red sauce, some balls of some kind (supposedly “meatballs” but they were oddly hollow), etc. I was only a little bit disturbed and we all basically just plowed in. The stomach was quite good (though did not look like something you should be eating) as were the supposed meatballs. The cow parts in red sauce were not my favorite.

Then, since this is Shanghai, you can also get any western food that you want as well (except Mexican food, which is killing me). So the next night I went to a nouveau Mediterranean restaurant on the roof of the modern art museum in People’s Square. The place had great views, and I had a pretty good salad and veal tenderloin. Then I went to a cool bar in Xiantiandi that had a jazz band in from New York. Could have been anywhere in the world and seemed as far away from cow stomach as possible.

Finally, I have been eating a ton of dumplings. Averaging about 25/day this week of all different types. My favorites are xiao long bao (steamed soup dumplings) and sheng jian (grilled? jumbo dumpling) .There is a hole-in-the-wall place a few blocks for our office that has been called the best dumpling place in the world. It’s tiny, and dirty, and crowded, but really good. And today at lunch there, I ran into a guy who grew up in Norcross and went to the same middle school and high school as me and who is my brother Michael’s friend. Crazy.

Finally, an interesting article from the People’s Daily – What will China be like in 2050? Hopefully I get time to elaborate on some of my thoughts next week.