Afternoon at Metro
By admin | April 27, 2010
Spent the afternoon at Metro, and seems they are adding some new stock lately. It’s a real pain to get to, and their prices aren’t always the best, but they do have by far the largest stock of imported food stuffs in Nanjing. Also, if you go during the week, the place is especially dead, it’s almost worth the trip just to shop in wide aisled peace and quiet!
Feta, Sour Cream, etc. The selection seems to grow every time I go in.
People overseas get a laugh when I tell them I usually buy my Bleu Cheese from Ikea, but looks like I may have to either give that up or blatantly lie as the prices seem better at Metro.
Decent selection of wines under ~70RMB, but have had some real horrible stuff. Have been meaning to start keeping a record of what I’ve tried….
Ton of wine and large liquor selection behind that.
First time I’ve noticed, but they now have TimTams. For those uninitiated, these are disgustingly(or deliciously) sweet chocolate covered wafer type cookies that are originally from Australia. Seriously one of the most intensely sweet things I’ve ever eaten.
More info:
Metro （麦德龙）
近郊雨花台区卡子门大街98号
http://www.dianping.com/shop/3367261
Topics: Food, Nanjing, Shopping | 2 Comments »
Things I like #002: Distingue Smokey Cheese Slices
By admin | April 25, 2010
This stuff is a pretty good choice if you need processed cheese slices (or are forced to make due in this cheeseless wasteland). Available in most grocery stores with 3 varieties, the dark blue one is regular flavor, light blue is the low fat and the orange one pictured has a real nice smoked flavor. The other two are pretty typical, but it’s the smoked that I get, makes great grilled cheese sandwiches!
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tortilla Time
By admin | April 14, 2010
Take that Old El Paso. No more of your overpriced imported tortillas. Metro now has these Shanghai made tortillas frozen in the bakery for ~15 RMB per dozen. These won’t keep as long once unfrozen as those Old El Paso bio-engineered mutant tortillas, but believe me, that is a good thing!
Topics: Food, Nanjing, Shopping | No Comments »
GFW Google Schizophrenia
By admin | April 2, 2010
So appears I spoke too soon (along with just about everyone else). Google appears to be back to the same state it was in a few days ago in China. Namely rerouting through Hong Kong, but still delivering search results.
Turns out it was just a “glitch” and not censorship. Well, not intentional censorship of Google anyways. The search results were returning URLs which contained “gs_rfai”, which gets blocked as the Great Firewall interprets them as having something to do with “Radio Free Asia”, which is in fact blocked. So Google fixed the “glitch” and we’re back to normal, or what passes for normal in this cyber soap opera\pissing contest………
more info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8595767.stm
Topics: Internet, Nanjing, tech | 1 Comment »
Things I like #001: Darlie Tea Toothpaste
By admin | April 1, 2010
Black Man Dragon Well Green Tea Toothpaste
Despite any moral issues with the “Black Man” brand, this toothpaste is awesome, not scientifically or results wise, those I can’t attest to, but the taste is great. What first sounds like it may be odd or disgusting actually works out really well. Once I tried this stuff, I couldn’t switch back to typical mint flavored stuff. Just hoping I don’t get tea stains on my teeth from my toothpaste….
More info on Darlie aka Darkie aka 黑人牙膏 (Blank Man Toothpaste)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie
Topics: Nanjing, Shopping, Things I Like | No Comments »
EPL side Birmingham City to include Nanjing on its Asian Tour
By admin | April 1, 2010
In news from South China Morning Post:
Birmingham City, the English Premier League side owned by businessman Carson Yeung Ka-sing, have confirmed that they will be playing in Hong Kong this summer.
The Blues will face the Hong Kong team on July 16 as part of their Asian tour, which includes matches in Nanjing, Beijing and a fourth city yet to be decided.
Birmingham are currently ninth in the league table and still have a chance to qualify for the Europa League next season if they can finish at least sixth. They still have six matches to play.
….
Meanwhile, a squad of three local players will be selected to join City on their Asian tour before following the team back in England for a three-week training stint in their soccer academy.
The game will almost surely take place at Olympic stadium, though it is unclear at this point who their opponent will be, as it won’t likely be Hong Kong as the article states 3 Hong Kong players will join Birmingham City for the Asia tour following their Hong Kong match. But should be a good time and a rare chance to see some international sport in Nanjing (That is until the Youth Olympics come to town!). I’ll be keeping an eye out for more info on this as the match date approaches.
Topics: Nanjing, News | No Comments »
Google Search Finally Blocked in China
By admin | March 30, 2010
At 5 pm today searches via google.cn (which currently redirects to google.hk) and google.com started to intermittently trigger connection resets after searches were attempted. Within a couple hours any & all searches would trigger a connection reset (i.e. you would get an error message page instead of the expected search results). It seems that occasionally I am able to still get a search result in different ways (via Firefox search tool bar, etc), but looks like a message is being sent loud and clear to Google HQ.
Forbes story: http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/30/china-blocks-google-tech-markets-firewall.html?boxes=Homepagechannels
Topics: Internet, Nanjing, News, tech | No Comments »
Les 5 Sens & Cheap Metro Wine
By admin | March 29, 2010
Been awhile and I’ve actually been to a few decent Western restaurants since I last posted about food in Nanjing. The first surprise was Les 5 Sens, a smallish French restaurant near NanDa off Shanghai lu. While I have heard mutterings that it has gone down hill, it wasn’t too bad the last time I was in, though it has been a bit since I’ve visited.
The dining room isn’t huge so if you have more than 4 people or so, I would definitely call ahead. Our party of 2 had no problem getting a table right away at ~8 on a weekday night. The prices are about average to below average overall for Western run places in Nanjing. The fillet is only ~65RMB or so, for a little extra you can choose a sauce, I opted for the bleu cheese. Steak was decently cooked and seasoned, the sides on the plate and the complimentary bread were nothing to write home about, and the wine was about average prices for Nanjing, which unfortunately translates to a bottle of sub par French table wine for 200RMB. But all in all a pleasant experience for Western food in Nanjing.
On a somewhat unrelated note, the selection of wine at Metro has taken a noticeable swing downwards in price, stocking more and more bottles under and around 100RMB. I recently picked up a bunch of bottles, including a 29RMB bottle of Spanish red table wine. I just had to see what a 29RMB bottle of imported wine would taste like. Not surprisingly the answer was, not very good, but still preferable to Dynasty or Great Wall. There are a bunch of decent options at the ~50RMB price point, much better than most other foreign wine shops around town. (For those unaware, Metro is a warehouse style wholesale grocery store. They sell large quantities of food, restaurant equipment, appliances, just about anything you can think of. They also have lots of imported & foreign type goods like BBQ grills, western holiday decorations, cheese, wine, liquor, etc. You are supposed to have membership, but you can usually just get a “day pass” at the entrance, or just ask the person in front\behind you in line to use their membership card.)
Les 5 Sens:
Hankou Lu Location:
鼓楼区汉口路52-1号(近南京大学)
More info: http://www.dianping.com/shop/2016484
Beijing Dong Lu Location:
鼓楼区北京东路兰家庄3号(近九华山路)
More info: http://www.dianping.com/shop/3367933
Metro （麦德龙）
近郊雨花台区卡子门大街98号
More info： http://www.metro.com.cn/metro/front.do?go=biztool_common_pg_StoreEditWeb&store_id=8103
Topics: Food, Nanjing | No Comments »
Favorite Jelly
By admin | January 27, 2010
My favorite jelly, got it from Ikea, kind of like a cranberry taste, but much sweeter. Much better than what you can get in the local supermarket.
Topics: mobile | 2 Comments »
Western Restuarants.. to do or not to do
By admin | December 29, 2009
One problem that I’ve run into before (and more so lately) is that certain local friends approach me and want to partner up and do a Western restaurant.
Sure I’ve had a good amount of experience in restaurants back home prior to my professional career, even on up to the management level despite being a college student at the time. I have no doubt that I could create a decent menu at non-gouge prices (hell I have even gotten pretty efficient at doing it in a home kitchen now, even without economies of scale). The problem I see is that there just isn’t a large enough market in Nanjing to make it worth while. You could probably get past the break even point and even make a little (very little) cash as well as having a place of your own to entertain friends while feeling like a big shot, but I’ve been there and done that, and it’s not as great as it seems, as nearly every night, some “friend” wants to hang out, etc. Plus, calling it a real smart use of capital would be a stretch IMHO, not to mention the HUGE amount of work it takes to make a restaurant function on a daily basis (in addition to your “real job”).
I’ve tried most halfway decent “Western” restaurants in Nanjing at least once or twice, and with a few exceptions, I’ve never been enticed to return to an establishment based on their offerings alone (it’s usually a lack of alternative choices, or just happening to be in the area). But knowing that not everyone shares my tastes, this isn’t a huge factor in deciding not to enter the fray, what is a huge factor is that I never see these restaurants too busy. Add to that that even when we are one of the few tables in the place, it seems somewhat unorganized, which leads me to believe that they have never been that busy on a regular basis, or they would have worked out the kinks so that when I am there on what would then appear to be one of their slower nights, it would be a breeze for them. There also seems to be little correlation between what I think is a somewhat decent restaurant and their level of business, meaning that often what I think is a horrible restaurant will have more customers than a decent restaurant. Case in point, why does Tacos regularly have more customers than someplace like Les 5 Sens or My Place? Sure, their locations may be better, and they have a bit more name recognition, being in Nanjing for 6-7 years, with multiple locations. But seriously, can anyone honestly say that Tacos is better, realistically it is more likely that they are more accessible to locals. The menu is packed with some old “favorites” of Chinese Western restaurants, Spaghetti Bolognese, Pizza, Fries etc
It is the same as the US, in more gentrified areas, generic “Western” Chinese food is more popular that the authentic stuff. It would be pretty difficult to directly transfer a popular Nanjing Chinese restaurants to a mid-tier US city and expect to be successful. It’s just not what the clientele want. Fortunately they do want Sweet & Sour Chicken, Egg Rolls, etc. I just don’t think that there is a equivalent “Chinese” style of Western food that Chinese will like to that extent (And in a city with as few foreigners as Nanjing, the local clientele would be crucial to long term sustainability). Even though a place like Tacos has more business, I wouldn’t say it’s packing them in like the moderately successful Chinese food restaurants (Or even local Korean, Thai and Japanese restaurants for that matter).
Anybody have an opinion? Is it a lost cause for decent Western food in Nanjing, or am I just a pessimist (No wait, I am definitely a pessimist, but is it justified in this situation?)?
Note: If any of the above is unclear, blame my coauthor, Jack Daniels.
Topics: Food, Nanjing, Restaurant | 5 Comments »