Angelo's New York - Italian Restaurant and Bar
This cute restaurant is not a far stroll from West Lake. As soon as we walked in I noticed that the demographic shifted, and my new American acquaintance and I were the majority while my friend YuYang was the Chinese majority. The waiters and waitresses, who are more accommodating than most in China, were happy to let us finish a dish free of charge that they had mistakenly brought to our table. The meal that we intended to order--a salad with fresh tuna, a Margarita pizza, and spicy sausage tagliatelle--was better than what I'm used to in Nanjing, but still not what I was hoping for based on the high level of service, relaxing ambiance, and modern decor. The salad, crisp and light, had hearty heaps of fresh (rather than mayonnaise coated) tuna, which you could garnish with (real) olive oil, vinegar, or (yet again--fresh!) Parmesan cheese at your will. I personally took heap fulls of the Parmesan and coated my pizza, which was hot and cheesy and so deliciously carb-heavy. I know that my Italian friend would not have been able to stop herself from scolding me for doing so, but even as I heard her voice in my head, the call of such good cheese--a rarity in Nanjing--was too overpowering. It was the tagliatelle that was the real let down. Though the sauce was good and the sausage was at least non-threatening, the "spicy" flavor was less of an Italian "piccante" and more of a full blown Chinese "hot". The spice, which was at least a flavorful spice rather than a bland Tabasco flavor, was tolerable, but the fact that the pasta was overcooked to the brink of waterlogged was harder to overlook. I was willing to consider this restaurant a very good find despite the extra minutes the pasta spent in the water if it had not been for our gamble on the "cheesecake." I think the quotations are important here, because what we ate for dessert was, in fact, nothing like cheese cake. Even from the moment it appeared on our table, my Chinese friend recognized it as an impostor. The blueberry sauce on top was fine, but the bland, cream-cheese-less, cool-whipped body made me wish Angelo's had never teased me with such a prospect as New York Cheesecake.
美食街 and 运动会
I was shocked that in the span of to and a half years Hangzhou was able to build an entire bustling city street from scratch. Walking down 美食街 near Zhejiang University of Technology strained my perception of reality as I passed dozens of wooden restaurants decked out in traditional red lanterns. The street, which starts with the traditional archway advertising its name in gold script, is a restaurant hot-spot full of well-established looking wooden buildings with old style sliding windows adorned with wooden tessellations and carvings of phoenixes. Yet, this street is less than three years old. It didn't even exist in 2009. I couldn't have been happier with our restaurant choice, however. Like the other restaurants, 运动会, which is essentially a sub-brand of the overall Hangzhou chain, 外婆家, looked like a comfortably settled restaurant made of dark wood and stone. The interior, also wood, was fresh and simple, with wooden tea cups that held warm barley tea. My friends and I ordered more than ten dishes of traditional Chinese fare, including spicy eggplant, grilled meats, a type of sweet and sour chicken that Americans equate with Chinese food, and a mochi-like green tea pancake and peanut ice cream for dessert. Maybe it was just the fact that I was in such good company, having met up with two Chinese friends (one of whom brought his sweet, good-natured parents) and three American friends that I haven't seen in ages, but we talked and laughed through the constant additions of food to the table in a way that would fulfill any happy sitcom's dining stereotype.
Ellens
Unbeknownst to me, my favorite breakfast place in Nanjing--Ellens--is actually a chain. With breakfast and lunch by day, hookah by evening, and dive bar by night, Ellens caters to the whims of every type of Foreigner. I myself grudgingly submit to its rotting and beer-covered interior to access the thick toast, butter, jam, yogurt, hash browns, eggs, lemon tea with honey, and other foreign breakfast delights that I can only get by zipping my jacket up against the always-open windows and turning a blind eye to the chipped and dirty plate ware. However, others enjoy this free-for-all atmosphere at night when the bar becomes overcrowded by foreigners who just want a place to drink and chat and meet other foreigners. I once attempted Ellens at night to see the reality associated with the name, but the smoke and blaring music drove me out almost as soon as I set foot inside. However, this past weekend when I was in Hangzhou, my friends were charged with the task of entertaining 20 or so anxious Belgians who had just come to China for the first time. Having walked to the local bar by themselves only to discover that Chinese beer is unpalatable compared with their Belgian beers back home, they returned the unopened bottles and began their plea to go somewhere better. My American friends who live in Hangzhou suggested Ellens, and later that night I found myself in a replica of the wooden, handwriting coated Ellens that I frequent in Nanjing. One look at the menu confirmed that they are, indeed, identical. However, this time instead of getting the Vegetarian Breakfast, I opted for a Pink Lady.
斯利美
Having discovered the joys of ice floss in Taiwan, I couldn't pass up my friends offer to go to 斯利美 (si1li4mei3). Just off of Hefang Jie, this little cafe brings to mind the simple pleasures of Taipei and Malaysia where all you want to do is have some ice and fruit and waste away the heat of the day. We got a milk and ice base with mango and strawberry, which is nothing but a heap of fresh fruit on a heap of fruit sugars on a heap of cream-infused ice. In my opinion, there's nothing bad about it.
