Donuts v. Doughnuts

First off, let me set straight my take on the spelling of ‘Donut’: Donut /ˈdōˌnət/ : small fried cake of sweetened dough, typically in the shape of a ball or ring, pretending to be an actual Doughnut. Now that we have that out out of the way, Shanghai is a barren wasteland for Doughnuts. Sure, its got some places that sell ‘Donuts’: bread like product with butter or pork inside and topped with rock-hard a chocolate like substance, which causes untold gastronomic grief. Things best avoided. There used to be a Mister Donut (note the spelling) which is America’s take Continue Reading →

When Popeyes Came to Town

Doing a little catching up now. Last year, around middle of May 2020, Popeyes opened their first fast-food restaurant in China here in Shanghai. I knew it would be busy, but was not prepared for just How Busy! I don’t think Popeyes was either. The top photo on this page was taken on May 27, 2020 at 13:15. The line is just what spilled outside. Inside is an equally longer line of people waiting to get in. The estimated serving time was 2-3 hours! Needless to say, I did not stick around. While Popeyes did to the smart thing and Continue Reading →

World’s Largest StarBucks

You read correctly: At the time of its opening in 2017, it was the World’s Largest Starbucks, located in Shanghai. It has since been surpassed by one opened in Tokyo, Japan in early 2019. The foreign business climate is apparently better there. Since there are tons of dry statistics online about this store in Shanghai, I’ll keep it brief. However many sites don’t give the address so some strange reason – not sure how you’re supposed to visit it if you can’t find it. It’s located at: No.789 Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, China and occupies anywhere from 27,000 – 30,000 sq Continue Reading →

Happy Anniversary!!!

Today is our wonderful 9th Wedding Anniversary!!! So, with a dozen beautiful fresh red roses, I took my lovely wife out to dinner. We went to a little new Taiwanese Hot Pot restaurant called “Gong Bao”. It’s nestled under the steps of the Shanghai Stadium right outside of CenturyMart convenience store. We had a wonderful dinner. Just the two of us. And the restaurant was very clean and professional – although they did have problems keeping the place cool with it being 95 outside and all the hot pots boiling away inside. Anyway, thought we’d share!

All Liquored Up

With our son’s wedding reception looming on the horizon, we found ourselves in the need of supplying a bottle of premium Chinese liquor on every table in the dinner hall. Twelve tables in all. We’ve been shopping around, and CarreFour has the best deals on Liquor. Plus you can sample them before you buy! So we emptied their stock of premium Maotai, picked up a couple bottles of aged Havana Club, and a whole bunch of free stuff for our extravagance. Because we cleared them out of this brand of Maotai, which included an already-opened (but barely used) bottle, they Continue Reading →