Città Espresso Club, Shanghai

With its minimalist architecture and interior design, soft jazz playing over the speakers, a very pleasant ambiance and excellent coffee, Città Espresso Club in Shanghai is definitely a must-go for any coffee enthusiast.

Dog on a Platter

People come to this small, seedy Sichuan restaurant for its spicy, cheap food, but little do passing tourists know that among the types of meat available, besides the usual selection of pork, beef, mutton and chicken, is dog.

Dragon Boat Day and the Pípá

Duān wǔ jié is a festival to commemorate Qu Yen and his contributions to the state as an honest minister, but what it’s known for most today is the pyramid-shaped sticky-rice dumpling, Zongzi.

Downtown Hefei, Lúzhōu Kǎoyā, Pǔ ěr tea

What I’ve enjoyed most in Hefei besides getting to learn Pǔtōnghuà and meet amazing people, is the food.

Just today I went back to Guanting Lu, a nearby street that’s quickly becoming one of my favorite places to meet locals and practice my Chinese, and had some zhūròu (猪肉, pork) chǎomiàn (炒面, or ‘chowmein’ in English). [...]

Chinese Fast Food + Bakery

I’m going to start with the night before, because there was something interesting, food-wise. Earlier, Zhiang Yì and Fang Yun had asked us what we’d like for dinner, and I’d decided to try something other than fàn (rice), and go instead for some seafood mian tiao. I’m not sure why, but I had imagined that [...]

Pǔtōnghuà, the first lesson (dì yì)

I had set four alarms on my iPod touch so I couldn’t miss our first 9am class with Zhang Yi, but I woke up before any of them at 7am.
Having figured out the shower situation the day before (or so I though), I decided to brave into the common bathroom (the one in our room [...]