Week Night, Date Night

Not much adventure during the day today to report as we needed some maintenance men to come and fix some things (more details below) and I was checking out some options in the online job search. However, we had a fun date night evening exploring more of the area!

First, the repairs. While I’d concluded that “the condensation method” is not an effective form of drying clothes and that we needed to just buy one ourselves, Matt suggested we call a repairman to see if they could fix our clothes dryer. (See pic of sheet previously air drying in our apartment after spending 2+ hours in the “dryer”. I now understand why we see so many clothes hanging in the street.) So Danny, our realtor (who is AMAZING) calls the dryer repair man who is set to arrive at 1pm. Dryer guy arrives promptly at 1pm, unlikely any US repair service I’ve ever experienced, and this is what ensues... Complete disassembly of the dryer, which is located outside on our balcony (more to come on that later), while he explains everything in Mandarin. Sweet but not particularly helpful. Then Danny arrives to translate! Oh, he’s just the best. Anyways, supposedly it’s fixed now but I have yet to try it. Fingers crossed.

On to date night: Matt mentions he can get off work at a reasonable time, which is a rarity even in the states, so I jumped at the chance to find a new spot for us to try. It was actually a recommendation from a guidebook, and it surpassed my expectations. Easily, the best meal we’ve had so far in Shanghai. Located down a quiet, unassuming street, about a 15 min walk from our apartment, “Lost Heaven” was like a welcome mansion retreat. Walking in we were greeted by lovely hostesses who escorted us upstairs into a enchanting , candlelit atrium that slightly resembles a worship temple. Just heavenly!

I treated myself to their specialty cocktail, “ThaiZeed”, the ingredients of which are a chef secret, but I can tell you it was delicious, refreshing & spicy! As for the food, delish! “Lost Heaven” serves up Chinese food from the province of Yunnan, which is located in Southeast China bordering, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Tibet (read more about Yunnan here: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/yunnan/ .  We ordered: the papaya salad, sweet / spicy / refreshing, the stir-fry beef, flavorful / spicy and the chicken “salad” with sesame and chillis nutty / juicy / salty / spicy. Seriously, we are coming back here and likely I will bring any visitors here. Maybe, we will even plan a trip to Yunnan! The whole meal (2 drinks, 1 app, 2 entrees) was less than $50. Expensive for Chinese food, perhaps, but not by these New Yorker standards (and less than a Western meal in Shanghai for sure)!

Once we finished our meal, our night continued to a local bar called “Boxing Cat Brewery”. This turned out to be a Westerner mecca with primarily British / Aussie patrons and everything in English. While the servers didn’t speak a ton of English, they were kind, jovial and we certainly tried to converse! We enjoyed some of their own brews here and will be coming back for a low key night and especially for the open patio during the spring.

Starting to learn more and more to share with upcoming visitors! Come join us! :)

Our "dryer" system when our real "dryer" didn't work

Dryer getting "fixed"

Inside of "Lost Heaven"

Me & my "Thai Zeed" (please note the chili pepper which I mistakenly wiped on the rim. bad idea, but still delicious!

Tasty Tasty, Per usual, my picture does not do this justice.

 Boxing Cat Brewery (outside)

I promise Matt enjoyed his time here, not that you would guess it from this pic.