Hong Kong restaurant in Shanghai

Shanghai is an expensive city to live and visit thus we were praising the heavens when we found this reasonably eatery within a swanky mall when we visited in 2013.

Although the restaurant was crowded, the seating arrangement wasn't too bad and we had a comfortable and reasonably, cheap dinner.

Here's the menu from the restaurant called "Long Ji Hong Kong Restaurant".

Can you see the rows of chicken and duck? 

Spacious booths for family and friends

Here's what our table of four shared:

Curried fishballs 

(skip this, it's bland and blah)  

A platter of Hong Kong-style roast chicken/duck/pork with steamed rice

Stir-fried brocolli

If you're vegan, you can order this because it's stir-fried with only garlic.

...a bowl of wonton and seaweed soup

The total bill: 153 yuan = 38.25 yuan per person. 

Quite reasonable for a hearty and satisfying Chinese dinner in a home-style restaurant. 

Bao zhi (newspaper) vs bao zi (steamed buns)

One day, I made an appointment with a Chinese-speaking friend who agreed to meet me at the intersection of a busy street.

Since I had to find a landmark that:

a) I could tell her in Mandarin and
 b) she could easily identify, I decided on the news agent, which is a big, square stand that sticks out among the crowd.

Feeling pleased with myself, I told her: “Wo zai mai bao zi de dian qian mian den ni, hao bu hao? (I’ll wait for you outside the news agent, ok?)”

She said, “Mai bao zi? Hao! Zai jian!”

We both hung up and I happily waited for her. I saw her approaching me but she appeared not to see me waiting for her because she was furtively looking right and left. Then, I saw her pick up her phone - she was calling me.

I waved both arms to her before she could start dialing. She saw me and crossed the road quickly. I asked her why she was looking for me when I was standing right next to the news agent.

She said, “Wo zai zhao mai bao zi keshi wo zhao bu dao ah…”

I looked puzzled and pointed to the news agent on my left. “Zhe ge bu shi mai bao zi ma?”

She looked at the news agent with big eyes and then it dawned on her that this silly cow meant “newspaper” and not “steamed buns”.

“bào zhǐ! (报 纸 - newspaper) (jaw clenched tightly, lips curled for emphasis)
Bu shi bāo zǐ (包 子 - steamed buns) (smiling without clenched jaw)”.

Oops!!! I apologized profusely to her but she laughed it off because she had been looking all around for steamed dumplings while I meant a boring newspaper stand all along LOL