Shanghai China Snippets

We had something to celebrate and after having read many raving reviews [internal href] of Spanish restaurant El Willy we decided to try them out.
Looking forward to some tapas and paella we were made our way to Donghu Lu. Entering a nicely decorated alley we decided to sit inside. They have a big outdoor seating but rain was in the air.

The Verdict in Short

The verdict in short, nice location, nice decoration, nice food, friendly though slow service, expensive and the fact that they charged for bread without even mentioning it won’t make us come back

When I made a reservation i was first told they were full, but as we were 2 persons, there was a table available after all. (it turned out that the restaurant was not decenty full but not packed).

Food

The menu is not huge and slightly hard to read as it’s rather colorful but we read our way through and started with several tapas. First their King Fish in Vinegar (50 Rmb) and their Shrimp in a mushroom canelloni coconut truffle(65 Rmb) arived. For the last one the mushroom taste was a bit overbearing. A bit later we tasted the Seared Foie Gras (75 Rmb) which had a nice aftertaste and their decent Garden salad.
Part of the fun of eating is dipping bread in the sauces of the dishes. Little did we know at that the time of ordering that the price for 5 small pieces of bread is 20 Rmb which borders on hospitality stingyness.

Wanting to try at least one of their paellas we went for the squid and cuttlefish version. Pitch-black rice mixed with seafood made it its way to our table. It looked good, the taste was rather monotone but I admit I’m not a paella connaisseur.

Drinks

We drank an excellent bottle of white dry wine, Peter Lehman Semillon (280 Rmb). We had also some watercooler water after we declined the choosing between bottles of sparkling and non-sparkling water.

Service

The staff is very friendly and what I really appreciated was that they had made the reservation personal by having a handwriite note on the table, saying Welcome to El Willy plus my name

Toilets

I didn’t go but heard there pretty ok and clean.

Environment

Verdict

We had a nice evening, enjoyed most of the food although not mind blowing and were pleased with the service although they were a bit slow.

Then the bill arrived and we were surprised.

El Willy is already not one of the cheapest and charging 20 Rmb for a small basket of bread is just sad, especially if you don’t tell on forehand. It should be part of the service and unfortunately, it left behind an uncomfortable feeling that wanted El Willy wants to squeeze out the last mao. The restaurant does have a great terrace and inside it’s well designed. Despute that, I doubt of I’ll visit them again.

Totally Spent

Persons: 2
Time:3 hrs
Money: 820 Rmb

Address

El Willy Spanish Restaurant
20 Donghu Lu. (cross street Huai Hai Lu)
Tel: + 86 21 5404 5757
Daily 11:00 am - 1:00 pm (closed on Sunday)
Website: http://elwilly.com.cn/

Other Reviews to average the experiences:

SHmag
Shanghaiist
City Weekend

You can read here more Shanghai Restaurant Reviews

Disclaimer: All opinions are biased, based on non-existent food knowledge and influenced by the mood of the moment.

It’s time for a backup of your Gmail account(s) if you live in China.

Google has announced it’s contemplating leaving China and the ramifications might well be that in doing so their Gmail service will become unavailable as well. There’s no certainty but don’t be naive and think it could not happen. Stranger things happened in China regarding the Internet.
How to backup Gmail with Gmail Backup

Program: Gmail Backup
URL: http://www.gmail-backup.com/download
Platform: (Windows & Linux)

Simple program that stores all your emails in a folder of choice on your hard disk
Includes option to set the date from where to start backing up

How to backup Gmail with Imap

On the help pages Google provides info on how to configure several email clients to back up your mail using IMAP

Among the email clients are:

Thunderbird 2.0
Apple Mail 2.0
Outlook Express
Outlook 2007
Windows Mail

See for an overview of all email clients here. For the Chinese version see here

How to backup Gmail with Pop

On the help pages Google provides info on how to configure several email clients to back up your mail using POP

Among the email clients are:

Thunderbird 2.0
Apple Mail 2.0
Outlook 2007
Outlook Express
Windows Mail

See for an overview of all email clients here. For the Chinese version see here

Better do it now, VPN connections will get slower once we all have to start using them.

If anyone knows better ways, please add them in the comments.

The Chinese firewall had an active day. Twitter blocked, Flickr blocked, Microsoft’s new search engine Bing.com blocked.

In general the average Chinese user won’t give a a hoot. Twitter….. Flickr….. and that pancake search engine.

It’s mostly the foreigners here that will have to find other ways to express themselves. Should be good for productivity, although there’s still facebook.., at least for now.

But blocking Hotmail…, that does affect the average Chinese user if not many Chinese business that still use Hotmail.

How for example will Mr. Hou cope with the fact that he won’t be able to read all inquiries about becoming an urban farmer.

No surprise then that today the hottest searches on Google.cn are all about “logging in to Hotmail.

and for some strange reason all those people seem to search only for it on Google.cn as Baidu’s visitors have other things on their mind or maybe they don’t use email.

Let’s see which one of the above will be the first one to make it back. My bet is Hotmail.

Clicking an ad I ended up at the website of the Osteria restaurant

I’m a bit puzzled by the fact that if I bring 7 or more friends I’ll be charged 10% more.

Still, I may try out the place one day, just with a small group though.
It seems from the pictures like an enjoyable place and the reviews seem ok as well.

Osteria Restaurant
226 Jinxian Lu / Shaanxi Nan Lu
Website: http://www.osteriaspirit.com/connect.html

I just asked her if she felt less happy after US bank Lehman Brother’s went bankrupt in september 2008.

Yes, of course, was her answer. Since that moment my happiness index plummeted to very low levels. Before all was ok, also thanks to Lehman Brothers but now….

“What’s the exact score now”, I asked. Well, at most 45. And before? “Well, at minimum 78″.

I followed up with, “Would you still marry me now, you know, considering the financial crisis and so..?”

“No, of course not. Don’t you know, foreigners don’t care about saving. They just spend it, they’re not responsible, they don’t want long term wealth”

“So what now”, I asked. “Well, better to divorce”, she said. “A score of 45 is less than 50 so no good.”

Yes, it’s hard but luckily fiction based on a brilliant article in the local waste paper aka Shanghai Daily that quotes research from the website Hongniang.com.

And so life in China continues to be lived in stereo types. Better think twice before marrying that foreigner!! (unspecified if he’s Asian, European, North/South American, African or god forbid Oceanic)

By the way, We’re still happy.

—-
Thanks to a tweet of http://twitter.com/fonstuinstra retweeting http://twitter.com/niubi
(Next article will be based on a tweet of a retweet of a retweet)

If you want to read the full article, proceed hereafter.

[more…]

Weekly Snippets

Brand America

The Brand America is getting close to Sanlu status. Unfortunately it’s easier to change to melamine free baby milk powder than to an USA alternative.

Healthy Running

Chinese school kids have run 3 km since the mandatory exercise program started.

“Primary schoolchildren run 1 km per day, junior high school students 1.5 km, and senior high and college/university students 2 km.”

My step-daughter has been running her daily 800 meters since June

She enjoys it and feels fitter. Maybe an idea for European and US Schools as well considering the increase of obesity

Chinese Omelette Recipe

1. Get an iron wok, make sure there’s some rust left in it.

2. Ingredients

3 eggs, preferably from a brand with “green” in it
2 table spoons of local milk, preferred brand Sanlu
Some MSG for seasoning purposes.

3. Put the eggs in a bowl, add the milk and MSG and whisk it.

4. Poor the mixture in the wok and swish it around so that a fine layer of egg sticks to the side of the pan.

5. Leave the egg mixture alone for a few minutes to allow it to cook and “set up.”
Once the egg whites have actually turned white you’re ready to serve

Enjoy your melamine breakfast

Dressing Up

I survived last night’s US Dress up contest, otherwise know as Halloween, in my own clothes.
I’m afraid though that in the future not dressing up will make me an outsider as the number of costumes in the street was considerable.

Yesterday, just before the football match Belgium - Brazil was about to start. The anthems had been played and the referee was about to start the match.

Behind me, on row 3, a little girl asked her dad, “Which one is China?”.

note: I had promised myself that I wouldn’t write anything during the Olympics but this was just too cute.