White faces in restaurants
Am I the only one who feels a sense of burning shame when they take visitors to restaurants already packed out with other foreigners?
Sichuan, Yunan, Dongbei, Cantonese- it doesn't matter what style of cooking it seems that any place with good food that stays open past 8:30pm is clogged up with laowei ruining my cool points in front of folks from out of town.
Last week was a typical example, I took two newbies to a place with fantastic food that's hidden in the back corner of a freaky art mall. The name of the street was so obscure that I had to explain to the taxi driver where it was, and by the time I'd led guests through twisting passages up the unlit steel staircase they were ready to call me king of the city.
Until we sit down next to a gaggle of frat boys on their gap year talking about "Two Girls One Cup" in their outside voice.
I've got a friend arriving from the UK tomorrow and will be feeding him for the next week- so can everyone of a caucasian persuasion (and the black folks too, you're just as bad) please stay out of the following eateries:
Thanks in advance.
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Unfortunately ispy, all the restaurants you've listed above happen to be very popular with the expat crowd. Though this isn't always the sign of ruin for a place I think. Perhaps it's a positive sign that more and more expats are venturing out, trying Chinese cuisine and really liking it, rather than just remain in their foreigner enclaves. But if you're looking to avoid a foreign face, bBest pick a less known venue and go for that. Our Chinese Bite writer, Katya Knyazeva finds a load of great places ... though her tastes are decidedly Sichuan / Hunan inspired. I'd suggest trying out some of the ones she recommends. Spicy Joint is supposed to be great. Or, tolerate the substandard decor and smoky environs and hit up the places on Wulumuqi Lu or maybe Huanghe Lu.
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funnily enough I was at Spicy Joint on Saturday night with said guest.
There must have been 500 people in there, both eating and waiting to eat. And yes, as far as I could tell, we were the only laowei.
Last orders at about 9:30pm though, which won't be popular with the foreign crowd.
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Hola spy. Yeah, all 5 restaurants you listed above should be avoided like plague if you wanna actually escape the laowai bubble. Funny I was just writing about this topic. Do we have some kindof Jedi blog connection? I suggest going down the list of "most buzzed" places on dianping. Didya like Spicy Joint? I freaking love their plum juice!
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ah, that's just the kind of list I was looking for on dianping actually. My hanzi is woeful so it takes me a long time to find anything.
Spicy Joint was great, although very very busy. Never had the plum juice although I did have something similar at the place below that dianping had good reviews for.
http://ispyshanghai.com/2008/02/17/a-restaurant-on-beijing-xi-lu-%e6%95%a6%e7%85%8c%e5%b0%8f%e4%ba%ad/
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Stuff white people like #71: Being the only white person around
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/20/71-being-the-only-white-person-around/
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I know exactly what you mean. You're either blazing new trails in dank or ostentatious culinary corners, or you're just one more white guy who figured out that X restaurant had great Chinese food... that Westerners like.