Hershey Kisses with Hazelnuts inside

On Tuesday I had lunch with a new friend by the name of Kate Hayes, who I met at the American Woman's Club of Shanghai. She is into everything Chinese, she wants to live like a local and try to experience the Shanghai life. We decided that lunch was going to be at a local restaurant. This may not sound interesting or impressive except that if you go to a local restaurant you may not be able to communicate on any level, waving your hands pointing to someone elses lunch to indicate that you want that for your lunch may not work. And although Kate has started her Chinese lessons she is woefully unprepared to order lunch at any 'local' restaurant. And I have not started my lessons so I would be no help at all.

Never fear, as I had done some research to find a restaurant that was healthy and where we could read the menu. The restaurant I found, Laokele, claimed to not use MSG, and made healthy noodles. Spinach noodles, carrot noodles and plain egg noodles. Noodles are a big deal here, everyone eats them. Also the menu had English translation so it was easy to point and order. Kate had the noodles with asparagus and bacon in a light cream sauce and I had the carrot noodles with chicken in a beefy stew like sauce, or beef broth if you will. This is a picture of our neighbors table with the asparagus and bacon dish his companion had the spinach noodles. When our dishes came I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture of our meal. We also has a 'health' smoothie, carrot and pineapple it was very tasty. Our lunch of 2 pasta dishes and 2 smoothies came to RMB 59 or $8.68 USD. After our lunch Kate wanted to go to the NEW Hershey's flagship store in Shanghai, right on Peoples Square. She was in need of gifts to distribute for Chinese New Year. It's part of the custom to give gifts. The Hershey store is a co-operative with a chocolate factory in Shanghai, so the chocolate was not made in the USA but here in Shanghai. It tastes wonderful. The Chinese like to get their fingers into everything instead of just importing the items. Creates more jobs, etc, etc. It's the same with Volkswagen, many of the cabs are VW's but they are made here in China. We had a lot of fun browsing around the store, I picked up a few boxes of chocolates for staff at the Shanghai Centre where we live. One big box for the doormen (it seems every 4 hours or so the staff changes and there is a new guy stationed at the door, so doorMEN, instead of doorMAN). Also a box for the tech staff with whom I have become very good friends with as our wireless keeps jamming up on us and we have to have help to restore it. We were given some samples and I am now in love with the milk chocolate kisses with the hazelnut center. Each Kiss has one hazelnut inside, so good. They also plied us with some hot chocolate milk, very tasty!!!