Kung Fu Noodles

Jason our driver wanted to take us out to dinner and we agreed. I am uncomfortable with this because I don't want him to pay for our dinner, his monthly salary is 2,500 RMB = $367.64, so you can see why I don't want him to pay. Since it would be insulting to say no we agreed and in return we will invite him to dinner next month(?) down the road and pay. He does not like western food so we will take him to a fancy Chinese restaurant near our apartment building.

Dinner was at Seabed ScoopUp Restaurant, yes that's the name! It is the newest hot pot restaurant in Shanghai, so said Jason. Our date was made for Friday night (Feb 13), Jason would pick me up at 5:00p and then we would get Tony at work, from there off to the restaurant.

This is a very big restaurant, looks like it could seat over 200 people. Hotpot is a great concept, it's soup fondue, much healthier then the cheese variety. You sit at a table that is designed to hold a pot in the center of the table, the center has an electric hot plate to keep the soup hot, or boiling as you will see. Then you order items to put in the soup to cook and then fish out and eat, at the end you can drink the nicely flavored soup....if you're still hungry. When we sat down we were give black bean sour milk, all you can drink we were told, included in the price. Yes sour milk, the color was grey and it was pretty awful, Jason said that maybe I would like it sweet? So he offered me some sugar, nope didn't like it sweet either - it was sour milk for heavens sake, and no it was not a yogurt drink. Tony immediately ordered 2 cold beers, thank goodness he knows how to say that in Chinese.The process is as follows, first you select your broth, spicy, plain or both, then chicken, beef, seafood, or tofu. The hot soup pot is brought to the table and set on the hot plate. You then order the items you would like to eat/cook in the soup. Tony and I are big fans of the mushrooms, any variety and vegetable, any kind. We can skip the meats and seafood.



Jason did the ordering (with some consultation with Tony) and he ordered beef, shrimp, mushrooms, and green lettuce - they eat that like cabbage, it tastes very nice cooked in the soup.

And then the Kong Fu noodles, Jason was so tickled to order these. The reason, it's a real show. The noodle boy comes to your table, takes a small ball of noodle dough and proceeds to put on a show, stretching and flinging the dough in a kung fu fashion, more like a dance then actual kung fu moves.The restaurant provides you with aprons and arm covering so that you don't dirty yourself. Also provided - free - manicure and shoe shine. Apparently there is usually a wait to get a table so they want to make sure you are happy and will stay around.
And as we left the restaurant there was this guy with a Monkey!