Overeating

It's only my second night in Shanghai and I have to admit I'm overeating.

Let's see:

1. On the first night, I ate 拉面 小笼包 葱油饼.

2. This morning it was more 拉面 烧麦 蛋饼 (note that 烧麦 here are filled with glutinous rice instead of meat).

3. Lunch was an affair reminded me of my army days - rice, choices of meat and vegetables, soup and dessert, but all served in the most boring way on a metal tray
and consumed on rows of tables in a canteen.

4. Before I left my office for dinner, 1 of my colleagues passed me half a loaf of bread, the type called 枕头 due to its size and appearance. Thereafter, I ate it on the way back and bought more food to supplement - 豆浆 油条 手工饼.

Anyone wants to buy a spare tire, made in Shanghai, China?

Food is cheap in China (by Singaporean standards), with the exception of foreign cuisine. I think Taiwanese food is considered foreign cuisine despite China's efforts to integrate the people.

What I'm refering to in particular is the 手工饼. I came across a few stalls during my first two days in Shanghai, but there's always a few people crowding around the stall, so I never got to see the part of the sign that says "来自台湾". It wasn't called 手工饼 in Taiwan anyway.

Thinking it was just a local snack and a rather popular one at that, I decided to queue up for a try. Only just before my turn to order did I realise that it's actually a Chinese version of roti prata.

I like roti prata, and this one looks pretty close to the real thing, so I decided there's no harm trying. Well, it really was no harm trying until the stall-keeper told me I mistook the cost to be 75% lower than its actual price.

Imagine a piece of roti prata, wrapped around a piece of ham that's smaller than those frozen ones you see in the supermarket, costing about 90 cents (Singapore currency). I think these Mainlanders would love to be in Singapore or Malaysia where they can get prata 24 hours a day, and better quality for the same price at that.

Let's see if my pants can still fit me at the end of my 3 weeks stay.