Eating and Working: Shanghai

I just returned from a week and a half of traveling for work. I was in Shanghai, China, Jakarta, Indonesia, Ho Chi Min, Vietnam, and Seoul, South Korea.  In addition to all the working I did in those 11 days, I did a lot of eating too. You would assume I ate a lot of Asian food, but actually, I ate a lot of Italian! Of course- in addition to a lot of Asian.

Since no one really wants to hear about my job, I thought I would share the food I ate while in each country. We can start with my day in Shanghai. I started off with a great breakfast from the hotel buffet. I was super excited when I saw these great little brown fruits in a bowl.

LONGANS!

I actually only took this photo so send it to The Boys sister, she loves longans. She introduced me to them a few summers ago. We sat around the table after dinner, peeling and devouring, peeling and devouring, a full bowl of them. They remind me of a sweeter grape that takes a little more work to eat.  If you haven’t tried them, I highly recommend you do.

Yes, I do know what the rest of my plate looks like- Meat and Pastries.

Don’t judge my breakfast.

I had already eaten my super healthy egg white omelet prior to this plate.

Ok… that is a lie, it was a plate of pancakes…. smothered in butter…

After a morning of working, we headed to a near by Italian restaurant for lunch, Isola.  The restaurant was in a high-end shopping mall, way to fancy for my frugal wallet, but the restaurant was delicious!

During lunch the restaurant offers a European style buffet of cheeses, meats, breads and fruits, in addition to cold salads and a build your own salad section.  European style buffets are my favorite! My go to brunch location in Minneapolis serves brunch just like this restaurant. I was in heaven!

I had to hold myself back at the buffet. Continuing to remind myself, “this is your starter, your main course is still coming.”

You will notice my plate is filled with several types of cheese and meats, along with a large portion of artichokes. I could eat artichokes with every salad…. mmmmm….

After stuffing ourself at the buffet, we all took deep breaths, and prepared ourselves for the main course.  We all agreed we could have gone up for seconds at the buffet, and wouldn’t have needed a main dish.

Now with all that said, I would not have passed up eating my delicious pasta.

Homemade Spaghetti Prosciutto Carbonara

I admit, I ate the whole plate. Even after I said I was pretty full after the salad bar.

I am inspired to make homemade pasta soon, so much better than store-bought. Stay tuned for my attempt.

And of course I still had room for dessert.

I always want dessert.

But of course, there was a bar for dessert too.  Fantastic!

And a chocolate fountain with homemade marshmallows.

With any buffet, you need to try several of the offerings, and that is exactly what I did. The Flan was some of the best Flan I have ever had.

I should have gone back for seconds. Dang my will power…

And my full stomach.

I wish I could tell you I took a nap after this lunch, but instead I went back to work for the afternoon. A nap would have been so nice.

Dinner was a little lighter. Sushi in the hotel restaurant was delicious after a day of work. I didn’t take any photos of dinner because it was all the usual suspects: California Roll, Shrimp Tempura and Edamame.

The “Pijiu” was pretty great end of the day. I did take a photo of that 🙂

After a good night sleep, I was off to Indonesia in the morning 🙂