For Your Eyes Only: Finding Roger Moore

The district of Tongshan, where I live and work, seems to lie in a wide valley surrounded by rolling hills and small mountain ranges.  Roads leading from both sides of the main thoroughfare around here head towards these hills, and so I decided to do some urban exploring this past weekend.  I walked up the south road of the university, to the south gate and checked out the little restaurant area opposite.  The dumpling restaurant I was interested in didn't appear to be serving at that time, being mid afternoon.  Most places were closed as well, including some dubious looking hot dog stand.  Not finding anything for brunch that I liked, I kept walking up the street, past some huge institutes or other organisations to the end where the street formed a a tiny T-junction with shops everywhere and of course lots of scooters.  

I turned right, strolling past endless restaurants and tea shops, then made a left down an alley.  This alley was also filled with even more tiny stores, including one that said 'Ciabatta Hi Girls, Hi Boys' out the front.  I kept walking uphill, before the alley came to a dead end at a hotel.  Trails led off around the sides into the hills.  I walked back down, stopping at a cookie place and got two sesame cookies that were very crumbly and disintegrated immediately, but tasted good.  I went back past the T-junction, and saw a couple of hamburger places, which both seemed very out of place, given the overall village atmosphere of this area.  It actually reminded me of an old village of which a modern city has expanded around.  When the shops were no more, I turned around, and then I saw it - a picture on a store of what I'd been craving since I arrived, rou jia mo!

I used to eat these delicacies all the time when living here last. Essentially they're a round flat bread, filled with chopped up beef and green capsicum that has been cooked on a hot plate.  A delicious street food costing next to nothing.  Given the pronunciation is not unlike Roger Moore, I remember a colleague once out on the English testing circuit, asking for 2 "Roger Moores" and the vendor understood exactly.  I ordered mine, trying to pronounce it more correctly.  When it arrived, it was piping hot and juicy, although beefier than what I'd remembered.  

I made my way back down the University South Road, feeling like a boss, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the warmth and deliciousness of the juicy Roger Moore.  I'm sure Roger would have approved!

The Empty Mall and The Great Wall

A few days ago I finally made my way into the 5 storey shopping mall that is adjacent to the university.  It's hard to miss as I have to go past it each day and there's a million bikes parked out the front with scooters streaming past forming a single lane alongside construction on the main road.  Although it goes by some official Chinese name, we've nicknamed it Himaxx because there's some Himaxx signage out the front for a store inside.

The Empty Mall

Once I eventually found the entrance and went in, I was a bit underwhelmed.  The ground floor has almost nothing.  There's a Pizza Hut, a KFC, a supermarket, a Luckin Coffee, Watsons, a Xiami outlet, a small department store/clothing outlet place, and a few other non descript restaurants.  The mall was largely empty.  I went up to the next floor and it was largely devoid of life - empty stores, barely a soul in sight.  This repeated on each floor, with the odd restaurant, but almost nothing else.  On level 5 was a cinema with two screens and some old school mini arcade game machines that faced each other and looked pretty cool.  Nearby the cinema was a fancy billiards place with a lot of guys inside.  On level 3 tuicked away in the corner was an upmarket gym which was also quite busy.  The rest of the floors were empty bar something random or obscure, such as the abandoned mini car racing track.  It seems online shopping really has killed off the small malls here.

The Angry Man

Inside Watsons I checked out some spray deodorants, having had my nice brand new one confiscated by security at Honqiao Train Station. I was the only customer the entire time I was there.  I did a quick test of the two kinds that were available.  Out of nowhere the store assistant, a nerdy young man with nothing better to do than embrace his inner short man syndrome, did just that.  "No noooo", he cried out appearing from nowhere.  I attempted to explain I was just testing it but that didn't deter him.  He kept ranting while I smiled and walked around and he tagged along.  I paid for one of the deodorants then left.  Although he was annoyed for whatever reason, he still wasn't on the volcanic eruption perplectic level, like the police lady with the short hair was, who served me and another teacher when we had to apply for our residency permit.  She was a whole lot of angry rage, barking commands and glaring.  The only thing missing from her persona was a Gestapo uniform.

The Supermarket

Having left Watsons, I went in to the supermarket at the other end of the mall on the ground floor.  I'd been told that there was a supermarket in the mall last year but it wasn't so good and had closed down.  This new supermarket was polar opposites.  Medium in size, it was brand new and shiny.  In fact it was one of the nicest looking supermarkets I've ever been in here.  It had a few registers at one end, with the various snack sections in front of that.  To the side was cleaning, kitchen and bathroom supplies, toys and stationery.  Along the wall near the snacks was a dairy section, complete with Kraft Singles type cheese slices (which aren't so nice here) and cream cheese triangles.  On the other side was a bakery section with lots of breads and desserts.  

What really stood out though were the various deli style sections with counters all around.  There was one for dumplings and various steamed buns, another one had assorted ducks, chicken, sausages, hunks of pork, a pickled vegetable section, and a Chinese style salad bar.  Adjacent to this were tables.  One had my favourite peanuts with sichuan pepper and chilli.  ANother had dishes already cooked including fried chicken, and other vats of brightly coloured chicken pieces.  Beyond all this was a fruit and vegetable area.  For items not pre-wrapped with a bar code, one simply takes their items up to a counter where the people working there simply weigh your items and put a bar code on them with the price.  That's pretty much how the rest of the store worked.  

I grabbed a bunch of chicken wings with tongs, placing them in a palstic bag then handed them to a storeperson who stuck a label on and handed them back.  I filled three small containers with assorted cooked chicken, fried, garlic soy and a Korean style yangnyeom sweet, sticky sauce.  I got some cucumber pieces in soy sauce and vinegar, and shredded potato in sesame oil and chilli.  I then looked at the Japanese area which featured small cuts of meat and fish at exorbitant prices.  Even the fish tanks were clean looking and the fish laid out on ice also looked very fresh.  There was an aisle with a small selection of imported procts like curry sauces, Kewpie mayonnaise.  My one complaint though, was I couldn't see any pasta or pasta sauce.  Not sure if it was hiding anywhere but usually those are the very items most self-respecting stores have when they stock imported foodstuffs.

The Great Wall

I headed back to the drinks area in front of the snacks for a closer investigation.  There was one aisle where every item was beer, mostly from around the world - The Great Wall of Beer!  There were the usual suspects, including the Belgian Trappists, German Paulaner bottles and cans (Paulaner has breweries across China), as well as weird sounding varieties I'd never heard of before such as Wizard beer and a couple of Belching Beaver.  Who could resist sampling something by that name?  I grabbed a Belching Beaver Mocha Latte Golden Stout and a few Coronas and went to pay.

Overall, this was a great shopping experience and I'm very thankful that this supermarket is only 15 minutes away on foot.  Staff were attentive, and more senior looking people were milling around making sure people were getting served and checking on the various food sections.  Things have changed since one of my earliest shopping experiences , way back in Shenyang, Liaoning, in 2010, whereby a checkout worker in a small supermarket opposte the university I was based at kept flinging my items as she scanned them, much to my delight.

Local Hotpotting and Some Good BBQ

The Local Hotpot

A few days ago,  I attended a birthday dinner for one of the teachers.  Most of the teachers from the other university program living around here attended including a newly arrived guy and his wife.  We met out the front gate and walked about 50 metres to a hot pot restaurant that had opened very recently.  Some of the staff seemed no older than teenagers and we were met with the usual laughter and nervous yet brave "hellos"  followed by more laughter.  The restaurant was bright and cosy, and we were seated near the back on little stools.  Along side the wall were all kinds of vegetables and lots of meat and seafood items.  

We gathered a few trays of everything and then we lined up at a little saucing station to fill bowls with various sauces and condiments.  Being hotpot, the best dipping sauce to have is the sesame paste mixed with fresh chives and coriander.  I served a bowl of this concoction for myself and then we proceed to throw in anything and everything into the cauldron of spicy and non-spicy hotpot liquid while drinking small glasses of Chinese beer.  We also grabbed some youtiao, which are a kind of fried doughy bread, perfect for dipping into the hotpot liquid.  At the end of the meal we were served a sort of complimentary milky dessert thing, with green sultanas and pearl bubble things found in bubble tea, a bit like tapioca and milk combined.  It was slightly sweet and quite tasty.

Hotpot is one of those meals where one can eat and eat and eat and eat, and so I did.  Although I'm not usually the bigest fan of it, it was nice to be eating out with good people, in a cosy environment, getting to know everyone.

The Good BBQ

A few days after the hotpot birthday, a call went out to meet up for some bbq at the bbq restaurant near the main interesection where we live.  This restaurant happens to be less than 100m from my apartment and I'd been meaning to visit.  About 7 of us met up and headed over.  We were seated upstairs, which was nice as we had space, but it seemed like all the wafting delighful aromas from barbecued stinky tofu had gathered directly where we sat.  (Stinky tofu being that Chinese delicasy which I encountered first in Guangzhou almost 20 years ago, and for a few years couldn't work out what on earth this infernal stench was that people were crowding around, on one balmy night, best described as a combination of burning rubber and burning dog poo).  The smell wasn't that strong, and soon was overtaken by the smell of lamb cooked on sticks at our table.  We also got chicken wings, vegetables,flat round buns on skwers, a bowl of some mushroom salad, and of course beer. 

Everything tasted so good that a couple of us were sent downstairs to get more meat and vegetables and chicken wings and thick slices of potato from the self-service section.  

While one of the staff was tallying up our bill, we looked at more of the weird and wonderful ingredients  available to be barbecued.  I did see some brains, but the winner were some wrinkly grey balls,  These were in fact sheep eyeballs!  Maybe next time.....  All-in-all we had a massive feast that worked out to be about $5 each.  

Outside in the cold, was a super chonky French bulldog chained up which let me pat it.  A perfect ending to a delicious meal.