Last day at sea level

Back in Shanghai one last night before we leave for the TAR. My cough has not gone away, and so I have taken my impending altitude sickness as cause for one last feast. I won't have much of an appetite when it hits and all. We went to a Hong Kong chain called, Yi Ge Huoguo, 一哥火鍋, or Number One Hotpot, and ordered all-you-can-eat and ate all of this and more.

Note the delicious and still undulating abalone on the white plate in front. If not overcooked, abalone is one of my favorite things. It tastes somewhat like a silky, soft clam without the seaweed aftertaste. Clearly, the taste is very unique. In terms of phylogeny, abalone are snails with a shallow shell, which doesn't bother me, but then again, I eat most everything. I especially like eating, in my sister's words, "foods that feel like clam."

Good morning, Nanjing

I started off my morning with this tasty yogurt made by the Nanjing Weigang Dairy, which played a big role in my existence but that is a story for another day. It's just a little sweet with a hint of clover and lemon. The yogurt, not my existence.

After all the rain in Suzhou, we're looking forward to a day or so in Nanjing. The streets here are as wide as in Shanghai, sometimes 14 lanes wide, but they are all lined with giant trees and brick sidewalks. The city is bustling but somehow not frenetic.

Foraging in public places

Ah, what is lovelier than a pale pink lotus in bloom? You can find them in freshwater on the edge of lakes and ponds. Or in the middle of a garden crowded with tour guides bellowing into megaphones about the cost of the landscaping in today's dollars and asking visitors to identify which rock formation looks like a lion.

After a few weeks, the flower sheds its petals and turns into a green stalk packed tightly with seeds.

And that is when you eat it.

Glass and stone and fried fish

I.M. Pei, illustrious architect and maker of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has a number of ties to Suzhou, the most recent of which is as the designer of the new Suzhou Museum. Besides being the perfect place to go on a rainy afternoon (admission is free), the museum is worth a visit if only to see the glass and granite courtyard, which is reminiscent of his Pyramide du Louvre but with overt Chinese flair like small rocks shaped like giant mountains and fancy carp.

To our surprise, the lovely woman helping us in the museum shop turned out to be Mr. Pei's niece and, again to our surprise, is a fellow Ohioan! With her help, we picked up some fun souvenirs and a restaurant recommendation: Wumen Renjia, 吴门人家, a converted home and garden specializing in Suzhou cuisine (Read: sweet and fried) at 31 Panru Xiang, 潘儒巷31号. It's just three blocks from the museum. Exit the museum gate and turn east (left) on Dongbei Jie, 東北街, then turn south (right) at the bridge. Walk a block down Yuanling Lu, 园林路, and walk a block. The restaurant is in the quiet alley, just to your right. It looks like this:

Mian 麵

While in China, I plan to gorge on mian in its innumerable incarnations. Traditional mian is always made from the same two basic ingredients--wheat flour and water. So, it is the method of forming the noodles that gives each variety of mian a distinctive flavor and texture.

There is mian cut from sheets of dough into very wide strips, micro-thin hairs, or somewhere in between. There is mian pulled by hand into long, thin coils. There is mian made by slicing slivers from dough as hard as a block of wood into a boiling pot of stock. There is mian made by piping a long stream of batter into fragrant oil.  There is mian pulled from a roll of dough into small flecks with chopsticks. And so on.

I have experienced some of my most satisfying bowls of mian (and grilled lamb on a stick) in Muslim restaurants. This afternoon we savored a few different types, including the la mian, 拉麵, or pulled noodles, being made here and later steeped in lamb broth and topped with fresh garlic and black vinegar.

My grandfather used to make la mian for us without much ado. Maybe to him, it was like making a sandwich. Beginning with one coil of dough, he would flick his wrist and suddenly it became two. Then again and two became four. With a few more swift movements and twists, suddenly he had an armful of white noodles, all just the same length, width, and thickness. It was magic.