sunday lunch at yu yuan (garden temple)

sunday is ayi's day off, so it's off to exploring the city and forraging for fud for us (plus, mark was home, so he felt the need to force the children to explore the city and forrage for fud). we head to the temple at yu yuan garden (or it's yu garden temple or - heck, i'm not quite sure what people call it - big tourist spot - fun. but rainy)... so, the temple is 500 plus years old (i think built in 1500 something).

and the fud?? - well, it left a little (lot) bit to be desired, as well. although we have eaten the famous soup dumplings here in the past, the line to the desired 3rd floor botulism haven had a line out the first floor door. and we weren't about to wait hours this time (although it is the most famous soup dumpling restaurant in shanghai). so we chose restaurant #78. very famous noodles (it said so - who am i to disagree??)

noodly noodles in soup. oooooh. now there's something original. on the menu it SAID it was bbq PORK (there's that dang zhu rou again!!) 2- fatty pieces - (yech) in ramen soup with pickled vegetables. but it left much to be desired when it came to the table.

that said, it tasted MUCH better than it looked. and the egg? tea smoked. they're actually quite good.

and THAT said, my order was the *best* of the fambly fud. most of my meal went to sabina...

these chicken wing thingies? well jack ordered them. he thinks he can find ANYTHING western on ANY menu. well he's partly right. but they sort of fileted these buggers (yet kept the bones and the gelatinous, fatty skin) and stuck bamboo skewers thru them. and called them bbq chicken wings. too much gelatinous, fatty skin. how do they GROW these things???? jack left a coupla skewers on the table (there were only 4 delivered). guess he wasn't fond of THIS western fud.

oh yah. and the pan fried dumplings. mark ordered these (knowing he'd hafta eat sabina's fud cuz she eats next to nothing). i'm sure they look huge here. trust me. they're were'nt. but that made sabina love them even more. i don't think mark got more than one or two of these. because sabina would not eat this: (look down)


looks great. looks fabulous, actually. presented well (no, my camera does not do it justice - although the picture of the soup ramen was quite spot on - ewww, eh?). tasted like seaweedy nothingness. no soya sauce. no ginger. no sesame oil. no mushroom sauce. where did they get the great color? it just tasted fishy from the sea kelp they pulled from the inland river. dirty. muddy. disappointing. left most wholly on the plate.

but lest you worry that those varkenkidlets left yu yuan hungry... varkenkidlets finished their lunch with a hot chocolate from the yu yuan's own fabulous STARBUCKS!!! and then we went home and ordered a fishy tasting pepperoni and cheeeze pizza from papa john's and watched TWO episodes of HEROES!!! (i think we're almost caught up w/ the states now).