What is Shanghai Marriott Hotel City Centre
The Shanghai Marriott Hotel City Centre is a multi-faceted 5 star hotel. It caters to the tourist crowd, the business travelers, as well as regular out of towners. With its close vicinity to the famed Nanjing East Road shopping district and People Square, this hotel, with its 700+ rooms, makes things easy if you want to just get out and walk around. Business travelers will like the large ballroom and convention space – the largest space convention space in the Shanghai Puxi area with elegant high ceilings. Locals and out of towners will most certainly enjoy the fine dining at the 2 high-end and world class restaurants – Inagiku, a Japanese and tempura restaurant and Man Ho, fine Cantonese dining. Additionally, there’s The Lounge – a lounge bar featuring an array of single malt scotches, Java+ – a sandwich deli and cafe, and Shanghai City Bistro – a large buffet style restaurant.


Where did I stay?
The guest rooms were nice and new, but that’s to be expected with their grand opening just a couple of months ago. I liked the large floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the expansiveness of the Shanghai skyline. Mood setting soft light with the warmness of furniture hues produced a sublime relaxing effect. Naturally, the Marriott with its world class reputation – with its sister hotel chain the Ritz Carlton, has service, details, and comfort taken care of. As a 5-star hotel, the hotel also boasts an indoor pool, health center, and an executive lounge. Looks like they have everything. One night starts at 1380 RMB on the weekends.


The Last Word
The funny thing is, that you can’t see the Marriott name featured prominently on the building if you are coming up from the South. Coupled with the entrance off to the side of the building, this huge hotel, as strange as it might sound, may not be the easiest to find.

Rating
2 Pigs
Price Range 3 $/¥/NT

Links
Sugared and Spiced, That’s Shanghai, Shanghai Expat, Time Out Shanghai, Smart Shanghai, Expedia, Hotel News Now, Trip Advisor, Marriot, Dao Dao, A Zexy Blog, China Value, A Sina Blog, Another Sina Blog

上海雅居乐万豪酒店
Shanghai Marriott Hotel City Centre
黄浦区西藏中路 555 号 · 上海, 200003 中国
555 Xi Zang Road (Middle),Huangpu District · Shanghai, 200003 China
marriott.com

What is 원조마포할머니빈대떡
On one of few nights left in Seoul, Mr. B, his wife and friends, took me to an interesting restaurant. 원조마포할머니빈대떡, translate to “Help her scratch pancakes”, is unique concept which you pick out different foods, vegetables and meats, which have already been battered and deep fried – tempura, to be then girdled fried – once again. After you and your party are seated, the basket of goodies is then delivered to your table. With a few bottles of , a milky colored sweet rice wine, and another trip or two to the, non-all-you-can-eat, tempera line, we were on our way to a good time. Soon it didn’t feel like winter at all.


What did I eat?
On this extraordinary tempura line, there were all types of vegetables – with lotus roots, green beans, carrots, radishes, mushrooms, chilies, and potatoes. On the flip side for the carnivores, there were meatballs, shrimp, squid (calamari, of course), and other miscellaneous meat pies. Some of my favorites were to dumplings, kimchi pancakes, and cheese sticks. I even had the, not recommended, fried toast – which I thought would be like french toast. The second phase of the process – the girdling, is essentially just warming the stuff up. We, rather me, tried over 15 different items – a bite here and a bite there.


Well?
I like the restaurant concept of picking your stuff to be cooked(or warmed), which is a little similar to Mongolian barbecue. You’d also expect that the soaked in grease and oil from the deep frying and the re-frying would be an overload on the grease – which it was or wasn’t. On some items it wasn’t noticeable, but on others – like the toast – it was screaming greasy. The Makgeolli certainly helped to break down and wash the oil.

Rating
1 Pigs – after thinking about it. . .i’m not sure if I would want to go back.
Price Range 2 $/¥/NT

Links
Family KB Star, Daum Blog, So Won Dream, MiMint, Menu Pan, Naver Blog

원조마포할머니빈대떡
울 마포구 공덕동 256-10번지
Wool dong, Mapo-gu, 256-10
+82 2-715-3775

What is 신선설렁탕
신선설렁탕 is a late night seolleongtang restaurant in Seoul. Seolleongtang is a beef noodle soup with a broth from beef bones. 신선설렁탕 is late night eatery that only serves seolleontang 설렁탕 or varying offshoots of seolleontang. 신선설렁탕 means Fresh Seolleongtang if you translate it directly. 신선설렁탕 has a nice little system of only serving seolleongtang so much that each table has built in stainless steel containers for kimchi and carafes of kimchi juice. (more on the kimchi juice later) But I am not sure why they would add “Fresh”. . . its just a beef noodle soup. Regardless, seolleongtang is one of my favorite Korean dishes.


What did I eat?
What else would you order at a Seolleongtang restaurant? Of course I had the seolleontang 설렁탕. The only question would be if I would be having the regular size or the large size – 7000 KRW or 10000 KRW, basically a difference of 3 USD. I naturally picked the larger one.

Seolleongtang is served in a larger bowl with piping hot milky white broth. The white color is from the bone marrow that has been cooked hours on end. Inside the soup, you’ll find thin sliced beef, similar to that of thickness of a traditional New York Deli’s pastrami. And lastly, some glass rice noodles are swimming around at the bottom of the bowl, as well.

Since I don’t suggest you consume the meal as it is, you are recommended to season your broth to your liking. Plenty of white and black pepper, sea salt, green onions, a bowl of rice, and kimchi juice. Kimchi juice is the “kick it up a notch” flavoring that transforms this meal to a hearty belly filling experience. At 신선설렁탕, they even have a carafe just for kimchi juice. Theoretically, you could have almost the same seolleontang, with your preferred level of seasoning and spiciness, at any place.


The Last Word
신선설렁탕 is a great place for late night snacking. Its no wonder that there a couple of these chains, along with mom & pop restaurants, that are also open 24 hours. Cold winters and the Korean apparent attraction of drinking, will make 신선설렁탕 and just the dish seolleongtang 설렁탕 popular.

Rating
2 Pigs
Price Range 1 $/¥/NT

Links
Gugi Yahoo, Wikipedia, A Daum Blog, Foursquare, Visit Seoul

신선설렁탕
송파구 송파동 134 1층
www.kood.co.kr

What is Gyoja
When you think of Korean cuisine, one would first think of barbecue meats on a do-it-yourself grill with spicy kimchi accompaniments. Gyoja is not your stereotypical Korean meal which features dumpling noodle soup and steamed dumplings. Located in the busy tourist and shopping district of Myeongdong, Gyoja is so popular that it has lines snaking out the doors, but also has 2 locations within a 5 minute walk in the same area. Hong Kong and Japanese tourist books have touted this place as a “go to” restaurant to try. With all these tourists and people in line, you’d almost be dissuaded away, but the lines go by fast. Our particular wait, with about 20-30 people in front, lasted about 15 or 20 minutes. Mr. S assured me that the wait would be well worth it.


What did I eat?
The sparse menu featured dumplings and noodles. . . so what else was I to order. My fate was in Mr. S’s hands, so to speak – but it was just lunch so it wasn’t a big deal. So, the 2 of us, each had a bowl of noodles with dumplings and shared a steamer of dumplings. If we wanted more noodles, it would be an extra charge. I saw a couple share one bowl and ordered extra noodles.

The simple menu and quick system allowed us to get our food fast. The soup noodles included 4 large dumplings in a clear broth. We spiced up the garlicky soup base with a spicy garlic paste and cracked black pepper. Each bite and slurp produced a heavy combination of pepper and garlic. It was hearty and yummy. The dumplings were nice, but something I could have done with or without. The noodle texture was nice and just right. As much as I liked the spiced soup broth, I reflected and wondered if I had killed the natural soup taste. Regardless, I liked it anyways.


The Last Word
I am not sure tourist books feature this place. I like this place, but it does not represent typical Korean food. If I only had a couple of days in Seoul – this is not a place I would go. But if I lived in Seoul, I would try to visit this place at least once a month.

Myeongdong Gyoja Restaurant (명동교자) (明洞餃子)
중구 명동2가 33-4 (1호점), 서울특별시, 100-809
25-21 Myeongryebang-gil 2-ga, Myeong-dong, Seoul
33-4 Myeongdong 2-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul
+82 2 776 5348
+82 2 776 3424
http://www.mdkj.co.kr/

Links
FourSquare, Trip Advisor, Mabunpo Tistory, Chow and the City, Seoul Village, Skypy Blog, Puff List, YeinJee, Seoul Taste, Hyulimbook, MiMint, Naver Blog, PoongKyung

Rating
2 Pigs
Price Range 1 $/¥/NT

What is Yoogane?
Arriving in the late afternoon, my buddy Mr. S and his new bride, take me and my tummy to some good local Korean, in my opinion comfort food. Tonight, we were in the mood for some chicken and found Yoogane in the Myeongdong district. Yoogane is a restaurant chain specializing in a unique barbecue chicken called day kalbi 닭갈비.

What did I eat?
Yoogane presents every table with a communal dry hot pot cooks the meat, chicken in this case, right in front of you. The chicken gets cooked with vegetables, hot spices, spicy sauces, and, most interestingly, ramen & cheese. 닭갈비찰판볶음밥 Dak Kalbi Chalpan Bokkeumbap is, more specifically, chicken and rice in a spicy sauce cooked in front of you for less than 5000W per person. We also added 치즈플러스 cheese plus, which adds mozzarella cheese to your order for 1500W. Unfortunately, for me, this meal was way to spicy for me to handle. Yoogane provided pickled radishes – of the nuclear yellow color, which doesn’t help at all. It’s like a small plastic cup of water trying to douse a roaring blaze in my mouth. Luckily, there’s a convenience store right outside, with which I hunker outside, without jacket and all, to medically cure my mouth fire with a pint of milk.

The Last Word.
This was a good meal with all the right ingredients – carbs (ramen) and meat (chicken). As I thought, stupidly so, I could handle spicy food, but Mr. S and his wife, proved to set out to destroy me starting with my mouth, tummy, and the experience of BTS. I would definitely try it again, even though they kinda messed up the experience by cooking the ramen way too long and the food was way too spicy for me.

Rating
2 Pigs
Price Range 1 $/¥/NT

유가네 Yoogane
柳家鐵板雜炒雞肉店
Myeongdong, Seoul, Korea
首爾明洞
yoogane.co.kr

Links
Korea Taste, Vintage Trinkets, Krzyst of Adamiec, A Sistuhs Seoul, Cinnamon 4 Coffee, You Tube, Wanderlust Diary