Street Hawker Goes Upmarket

Seen while driving along Dong Bin Road in Nanshan, Shenzhen. Street hawker upgrades from putting goods on a mat placed on the ground to placing the goods on car bonnet.



Unfortunately, the prices were also upgraded accordingly and she wanted near department store prices for the children's shoes as well.


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Shenzhen Mangrove West Coast: Property Management Staff Beat Up Owner

The pictures say it all. I was passing by Shenzhen's Mangrove West Coast, one of the highest priced residential estates, when I noticed the apartment owners had put up banners on their balconies. From what the banners say, it seems that one of butler got into a fight with one of the apartment owners. How this happened, I am not sure but I do know that the property developers and management have been boasting about their butler service as being as good as that of a five star hotel and this was also one of the main reasons why the property management fees for this estate was double the price of the fees charged by neighbouring developments.



Translation: "Unbelievable - Butler beats up owner"




Translation: "Beating up someone is illegal"






I think the main reason for the low number of banners hanging out is a low occupancy rate.
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Iced desserts @ Tianmu Blue Bird Cafe 天母蓝鸟咖啡

The weather is starting to warm up and despite the few days of rain and cold this last week, on the whole, it is time to start shedding the winter jackets and trading for lighter jackets. And instead of looking for nice hot drinks to warm up with, I have started to look for ice cold desserts in anticipation of the hot summer months coming up.

The Taiwanese have a range of great iced desserts using shaved ice topped with all sorts of sweet options and this is one of my main counters to a hot summer. Tianmu Blue Bird Cafe is a Taiwanese owned and operated chain that has several cafe's spread over Shenzhen (深圳) and Dongguan (东莞). You can tell you are near the place a mile off with the smell of freshly baked cakes and cookies leading you with siren-like calls and your nose instantly takes over control of the rest of your body and leads you on. Arriving at the front of the cafe, the first thing you will notice is the bakery offering a variety of tempting confections. But this is not what I am here for.

The first item ordered was a mixed fruit shaved ice pudding. A small mountain of shaved ice is first placed on a plate and then topped with an assortment of fruits. And then the entire concoction is liberally doused in a sweet sauce, making a beautifully coloured and appetizing visual spectacle.



Unfortunately, that was all pure appearances. Only good to look at. For what the dessert cost, one would expect Tianmu Blue Bird Cafe to be quite generous with essentially an extremely high profit item. How much can some sweet fruity sauce, a few pieces of sliced fruit, and some ice cost? Yet, stingy they were. The fruits barely covered the surface of the shaved ice and the sweet sauce was not even enough to penetrate more than a few millimetres of the surface of the ice, leaving the ice on the inside completely plain.

The black forest shaved ice pudding was even worse. The picture below says everything. All you get for this desert is an oreo and some chocolate flavouring which I may add, tastes worse than the chocolate ice cream stick you can purchase at the neighbourhood convenience store for 1 RMB!



Dessert clearly is not their strong suit. Service is another of their problems. The staff are excellent but the person running the cafe is not. Someone I know personally recounted to me later that their family was there several weeks earlier and trying to figure out what to order since everything they wanted was not available or out of stock and the rest that was offered was not what they wanted have. This Taiwanese manager came along and ordered his staff to chase them away. Unfortunately, as he was yelling at his staff in Taiwanese, the person who recounted it to me was unable to explain precisely what was communicated. Only that several staff immediately surrounded the family and escorted them away, saying "if you do not order anything, do not stay here". Great customer service. My impression of Taiwanese run dining establishments has always been of the highest regard as the Taiwanese run their shops with the highest standards of professionalism and their customer service has been first class in my experience. I guess the Taiwanese have their black sheep too.

Will I ever go back to find out if they do anything else better, since they clearly cannot do dessert? I think not.
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Kejia (Hakka) Cuisine @ Zhongxin Kejiawang 中信客家王

Kejia (Hakka) food is very easy to find in Shenzhen and wherever you find one of these restaurants, you will find reasonably priced food that is value for money and a big crowd, as Hakka food is very popular. Zhongxin Kejiawang Hakka restaurant is not easy to find as the front of the restaurant is hidden from view of the main road by trees. However, at any given meal time, there is a decent crowd at the restaurant. Naturally, following the herd instinct, I followed the crowd in.

The menu is pretty much standard Hakka fare and in any Hakka restaurant, my acid test items are the chicken stew (清炖鸡), pork soup (猪肉汤), braised bean curd (让豆腐) and the vegetables cooked in lard (猪油炒菜). I ordered everything except the chicken.

The soup was tasty and on a scale of one to ten, I would give it a seven. Not the best I have had but good enough to be above average. This is not to say that the soup was poor. It is quite good.






Braised bean curd (让豆腐) is a classic Hakka dish. The bean curd is hand made and freshly made daily. As a result, the taste is unforgettable. The smoothness and the flavour of beans rather than flour in the supermarket variety combined with the bits of minced meat topping and the preserved beans used to flavour the dish. Excellent. And polished cleanly within minutes.



The pig trotters (糖醋猪手) cooked in sugar and vinegar tasted excellent. However, I found the pig trotters to be a bit chewy. It seems that the chef could have cooked the trotters a longer so that the skin and the meat would fall off the moment you bite into it.



The choy sum vegetables cooked in lard was excellent. Cholesterol aside, I maintain that lard just makes the vegetables taste so much better. And even the lard is delicious.



The rice is not cooked in a rice cooker like most other restaurants. Instead, it is individually cooked in earthen bowls and steamed in a large cooker. It seems that the earthen bowls impart a unique fragrance to the steamed rice and somehow enhances the flavour of the rice, making it taste even more fragrant than Thai fragrant rice.



This restaurant serves authentic and delicious Hakka food. It is a bit hard to get to, but the trip will be well worth it.

The address:
Zhongxin Kejiawang Jinhai Road next to the Houhai Wholesale Market, Nanshan, Shenzhen 中信客家王 深圳南山近海路后海批发市场旁
Directions via my Shenzhen Food Map
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Photo Gallery for Penpenxiang 盆盆湘湘菜馆

Following my original visit to Penpenxiang Hunan Restaurant 盆盆湘, I went back a few more times and I figured that it was worthwhile to put up some of the photographs here.

Asparagus leek and smoked meat in a hot pot 干锅莴笋腊肉


Smoked meat stir-fried with leek


Cabbage tossed and stir-fried with vinegar and dried chili 醋溜白菜.


Spicy "General" Duck 香辣将军鸭


Soya beans in chili appetizer

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Street Food Fare @ Baishijie 白石街

Street stalls are a great way to sample the various tastes of China, or for that matter, any other country in the world. A bite on a local snack and you can tell the taste preferences of the people and what you can expect their other food dishes to be like. Baishijie (白石街) is a regular haunt for me and the place is a microcosm of China with peoples from all parts of China living in the area. As a result, the food available here is also just as varied and both authentic in taste and reasonable in price.

Chaozhou (or Teochew) is famous for their green bean cakes which are fluffy pastry not dissimilar to those found in your croissants and pies filled with green bean paste. Then the cake is then pan fried till done. However, little or no oil is used and as a result you have a mix of slightly salted pastry with a mildly sweet green bean filling. A very excellent mix of flavours.



The green bean cake is not filling enough to be a full meal and tastes mild and pleasant enough for a single person to gobble several at a single sitting.



This makes for excellent business as evidenced from the empty layers on the rack. And in the few minutes I was there, several customers had already come and gone, each carrying a bag full of the freshly made cakes.



The next stop was at a store selling a pan fried Chinese pizza. This is made in several different provinces in China and each region has their unique ingredients and fillings. However, the general method of making the cake is similar. The pizza was on the salty and spicy side and was an excellent alternative as a snack when taken with an ice cold Coke or a cup of hot tea.



The pizza is made on the spot. Try not to think too much about hygiene.



The address:
Baishijie at an alley next to the Jiangnan Department Store, Nanshan, Shenzhen 深圳南山白石街江南百货旁
Getting there using my Shenzhen Food Map



Other street fare:
Hubei Spicy Duck Necks
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Roast Goose @ Xinwenhua Hong Kong style cafe 新文华港式茶餐厅

While getting into the basement carpark of Shenzhen's Coastal City Shopping Mall, I passed by a new Hong Kong style cafe next to the entrance of the car park, right opposite another Hong Kong restaurant Cafe de Coral. So, as it was time for a meal, I decided to give this new restaurant a try. The posters on the outside proudly proclaim the Hong Kong heritage. So it is with a certain amount of expectation that I stepped inside.

The interior of the restaurant is pretty nice with purple cushions on the chairs and waiters and waitresses all dressed in black. Then it started to go all wrong. First, I took out my laptop and a waiter said they had wifi available, only that the signal was a little weak. I checked out the signal and found that it was actually Cafe de Coral's wifi base station. Oh.

Roast goose is one of my favourite foods and to me, that is the classic item you order at a Hong Kong style cafe. And so I ordered a roast goose and barbecued pork mix with rice and it arrived shortly.



First impression was good grief, the portions are miserly! It seems that their chef is related to scrooge. However, it looks good and maybe it is the triumph of quality over quantity. Unfortunately, it was not. Neither the roast goose or the barbecued pork was good. The pork was overly sweet, tough and cold. The goose was even tougher. But they were both beaten handily by the vegetables. Effectively, this was a poor meal and I do not expect to see this store last very long unless something changes. Or unless they do other dishes better. I do not think I will be going to find out either.

The address:
Xinwenhua, Office Tower, Coastal City Shopping Mall, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 新文华 深圳南山海岸城办公楼
Directions there using my Shenzhen Food Map



Other roast goose restaurants reviewed:
Fat Girl's 肥妹烧腊店
MC Charcoal Goose Restaurant 味宗烧鹅
Tai Hing Roase Goose 太兴烧鹅
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Hubei Spicy Duck Necks @ Jueweiyabo 绝味鸭脖

Spicy duck neck (麻辣鸭脖) is one of the big local dishes in Wuhan (武汉), the provincial capital of Hubei (湖北). In fact, the people of Wuhan are so proud that they have a saying "去武汉，啃鸭脖" which loosely translates to "if you are in Wuhan, you have to try their spicy duck neck." These days, you do not have to go to Wuhan for the duck necks, the business savvy Wuhan people have brought this snack all over China and shops selling Wuhan spicy duck neck have sprouted up in virtually every street corner. This snack has become very popular with the Chinese and having tasted it once, I can understand why. It is ADDICTIVE! The first bite is one of pure heaven. The spices instantly burn your tongue and lips and yet, the flesh is juicy enough to make you want to take another bite, and another, and another till you are gnawing the bony neck bones trying to get at the last bits of meat stuck in the nooks and crannies.




In addition to duck neck, there are duck liver, intestines, gizzard, wings, feet and each have their unique taste even though they are all stewed in the same spicy sauce stew. I personally love to mix the neck with the liver and gizzard as the taste differences between the three are most marked. However, nothing is better than gnawing on the duck neck.



I love to have the spicy duck neck with beer. There is nothing more pleasurable than having your tongue and lips burned by the duck neck and then washing and salving your mouth with ice cold beer. My Chinese friends also like to have it with a meal but I think its best appreciated on its own.

The address:
Jueweiyabo, Coastal City East Tower Block facing Kempinski Hotel, Nanshan, Shenzhen 味宗烧鹅 深圳南山海岸城东座凯宾斯基酒店对面
Directions using my Shenzhen Food Map


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Another Wifi Hotspot @ Subway

A new Subway restaurant opened in the residential area of the Shenzhen High Technology Park area and the good news is that this Subway also offers wifi internet access. Only snag is you have to ask the staff for the password as access is password protected.

Subway sandwiches used to be my staple for a quick lunch whenever I used to be swamped with work and wanted a quick meal at my desk. I am glad to see them around. I had a standard Italian B.M.T. which was tasted pretty much like what it was supposed to. So no surprises, pleasant or unpleasant, which is nice when you visit a chain restaurant.

I had a roast beef sandwich.


The address:
Subway Binfushiji Plaza, Shenzhen High Technology Park, Nanshan, Shenzhen 赛百味 深圳南山科技园滨福世纪广场

Directions using my Shenzhen Food Map


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Xibei Muslim Food @ Laoxibei Muslim Restaurant 老西北穆斯林饭庄

China has a fairly large number of Muslims, some 20+ million, and mostly concentrated around the North western provinces of Gansu, Xinjiang and Ningxia. As such it is not too difficult to find decent Muslim food. However most Muslim restaurants tend to be the Lanzhou noodles variety and lack a lot of the traditional dishes. Laoxibei Muslim Restaurant (老西北穆斯林饭庄) is one that has a decent menu of traditional northwestern Muslim dishes and is located in the residential area within the Shenzhen High Technology Park.

The first dish is the home cooked potatoes. The predominant spice in the potatoes is cumin (孜然) and this gave the otherwise starchy potatoes a flavour that is extremely pleasant. I think potato chip companies like Lays should really consider making a variant of chips with cumin flavour.



The diced mutton on toothpicks (牙签羊肉) is one of the restaurant's more popular dishes. I noticed that virtually every table in the restaurant had a serving of the diced mutton on toothpicks. Again, the predominant spice is cumin with an assortment of other savoury spices and the mutton cubes that have been marinated and speared with a toothpick are then deep fried till the flavour is brought out. In spite of the deep fry process, the mutton remains tender and juicy. This is best eaten with your fingers holding one end of a toothpick and chewing off the mutton bits.



The bean curd stir fried with garlic chives (韭菜香干) was pretty decently done too. The chives in my opinion is the essential ingredient that makes or breaks the dish. In this instance, the chives made the dish an excellent one, neither too salty or too overpowering.



Finally, the beef in a bucket. I think the dish can be best described as a variant of hot plate beef. The beef is cooked in a pre-heated iron pot along with the spices and other ingredients and the red hot iron pot is then enclosed within the wooden bucket to prevent it from burning anyone who may accidentally touch against it. In my opinion, this dish, while highly recommended by the waiter, was not really worthy of high praise. Firstly, the taste is not much different from the more commonly seen beef on a hot plate and secondly, the beef was just average.



In all, for a change of taste, this place is highly recommended. I would further highly recommend their barbecue mutton sticks (烤羊肉串) which I did not order on this trip.

The address:
Laoxibei, Donghaiwanhao Plaza, Shenzhen High Technology Park, Nanshan, Shenzhen 老西北穆斯林饭庄 深圳南山科技园东海万豪广场
Directions using my Shenzhen Food Map
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Shenzhen Free Wifi Hotspot Map

I have started to compile a map of Shenzhen marking out all the free wifi internet hotspots as I discover them and note them down. As always, this is very much a work in progress.


View Larger Map

Wifi Hotspot Listings:
Baoan
Futian
Luohu
Nanshan
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Dongbei Dumplings @ Jiaoziying 饺子营

The Shenzhen High Technology Park used to be a graveyard where decent restaurants are concerned. However, in recent times, a cluster of restaurants have sprouted up at the residential area in Donghaiwanhao Plaza (东海万豪广场) despite getting off to a slow start two years ago. In recent times, the residential mall has filled up and now there are several restaurants offering a good variety of food. Jiaoziying Dongbei (Northeast China) Restaurant is one of the newcomers and they specialize in the food from the three provinces Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin, typically collectively referred as Dongbei or the Northeast.

The restaurant interior is bright and well lit and the party piece is the open concept kitchen where they make their dumplings or jiaozi (饺子). Dumplings are the staple dish in Dongbei and the Dongbei people eat their dumplings like the Southern Chinese take rice. In Jiaoziying Dongbei Restaurant, the dumplings are freshly made when you order. I caught the chefs hard at work making the dumplings I had just ordered.




The boiled pork and cabbage dumplings (白菜猪肉饺子) arrived and the fact that it was freshly made and the fresh ingredients instantly made a huge difference. Normally, I douse the dumplings in a sauce mixed from vinegar, soy sauce, chopped garlic and chili. This time I ate the dumplings without sauce. It was that good. The pork filling was juicy and the cabbage retained some of the crunch from not being over cooked.



The pan fried pork spiced with fennel dumpling (茴香猪肉饺子) arrived next and it was done pretty well too. Only not as good as the high standards set by the pork and cabbage dumplings. That is not to say that the pork and fennel dumplings are poor. They are excellent. The fennel spicing made the pork more fragrant and the dumplings were pan fried just right with a light crispy outer and a juicy filling.



Cucumber dipped in bean sauce (沾酱黄瓜) is a traditional Dongbei meal and it is certainly very healthy. The sauce is made from fermented soya beans and in most Dongbei restaurants in the south of China, this sauce tends to be commercially made and taste overly salty and lack the taste of bean. The sauce here is almost close to home made quality which speaks volumes. I normally like to have this if I am in need of a heavy detox from overly rich meals. It is to me the Chinese equivalent of a fresh garden salad with its own unique salad sauce.



Stewed pork ribs (酱骨架) is another classic Dongbei dish. There are restaurants in major cities in Dongbei like Shenyang, Haerbin, Changchun and Dalian that are packed solely because people are queuing up to eat their stewed pork ribs. The pork ribs were ordinary and I felt that the chef did not spice it up a little bit more to make the pork more fragrant. They are not bad. In fact, they are above average but just not great.



The deep friend yellow catfish (炸黄鱼) is a nice snack to have if you fancy a nibble. The flesh of a catfish is always tender and in this case, these are little ones that go great almost any way you choose to make it. If you do not like to pick through a fair amount of tiny bones in your fish, you are best advised to proceed with caution. The catfish, while light on tiny bones, still has some on them and you have to eat this with care. The taste more than makes up for the trouble, in my opinion.



The last dish was beans stew (炖油豆角). Unfortunately this did not go too well. The beans were old and no amount of stewing and sauce was going to save it. This is a major blemish to an otherwise decent outing.



In all, Jiaoziying Dongbei Dumpling Restaurant offers a decent meal that is filling and nutritious. It is worth a go and definitely order the dumplings. I will be back for more too.

The address:
Jiaoziying Dongbei Dumpling Restaurant, Donghaiwanhao Plaza, Shenzhen High Tech Park, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 饺子营 深圳南山科技园东海万豪广场
Directions using my Shenzhen Food Map


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Hunan Food @ Penpenxiang 盆盆湘湘菜馆

I was passing by the area looking for a place to eat when I noticed a new addition to the Nanshan Road neighbourhood. Being ever curious, I decided we should pop in and try out the food. When we arrived, there was only one table having a meal and after settling down, over the course of the meal, I discovered that was actually the restaurant owners eating and posing as guests. The restaurant was that new! Excellent! I always love going to newly opened restaurants. I have a theory that a restaurant is at its best when it first opens and is anxious to please and attract a group of regular diners. Portions and taste, during this honeymoon period, is at the most generous and of the highest standard. This honeymoon period usually lasts between one to three months after which, once the restaurant has garnered a steady stream of regular diners, the quality of the food starts going downhill rapidly.

The first to arrive was the restaurant's stir-fried garlic chives and black fungus (韭菜木耳). The black fungus was sliced into strips and garlic chives appear to have been brought in daily from Hunan directly as the taste was slightly different from the garlic chives that are available from Guangdong. The freshness of the chives combined with decent quality fungus made this dish particularly good. This in my mind is a perfectly done dish where the chef merely brings out the freshness and the taste of the ingredients but does not smother the food with spices.



The next dish was fried bamboo shoots and pork slices (竹笋肉片). This too is another dish that depends heavily on the freshness of the ingredients than the actual seasonings. In this case, the chef passed with flying colours having picked the bamboo shoots that were tender, sweet and crisp. Once you have the right ingredients, it is up to the chef not to mess it up. And mess it up, he certainly did not. An excellent dish that was polished up in minutes.



The honghu lotus rhizome soup (洪湖莲藕汤) arrived later. Unlike Cantonese cuisine or Western cuisine where the soup normally has to show up early, Hunan food does not appear to have any specific order for soup. The soup was one of the best I have had in a long time. The lotus rhizome was crisp and sweet and the soup was rich to taste and one could keep drinking bowl after bowl of it and not get tired.



Finally, I ordered the classic Hunan dish, fish head with chopped chili (剁椒鱼头) which is in my mind, the acid test for a Hunan restaurant. I would love to say they hit a home run and went four for four. Unfortunately, I could not. The fish was reasonably fresh but somehow I think the chef might have gotten his timing slightly off and the fish came slightly over done. The chilis topping the fish was pretty well done but I would rate this as average. And certainly not a fitting grand finale to the meal which had up to this point been going brilliantly.



In all, it was an excellent meal. I will certainly come back to this restaurant and try more of their foods in short time and I would be happy to do repeats of all except for the fish.

The address:
Penpenxiang, Nanhai Building, Nanshan Road, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 盆盆湘 深圳南山南山大道南海大厦
Google Map Directions



UPDATE: More Hunan food at Penpenxiang.
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