Shanghai Hotel Quarantine Diary: Day 8
5:00am - woke up
6:00am - I heard a child’s voice - was it the family across the way’s turn to leave? I had seen a child next to an open door before, when I opened my door to pick up a meal. It’s so interesting to be living in this room for so long, and knowing of the existence of people around you, but never interacting.
6:45am - worked out
7:22am - observed through the peep hole (one of my few entertainment channels) a hazmat-suited person disinfects the room with a professional sprayer (not their usual reusable spray bottle). Indeed, the family left. I wonder if they were Japanese or something? The temperature-taker would often say “your temperature?” to them in English, and I also noticed that they ordered the Western meal.
7:55am - picked up breakfast. Speaking of menus, they dropped off the menu for next week! It’s always a thrill to get something besides just the food.
A quick glance confirmed my suspicion: next week’s menu is the same as this week’s, which was the same as last week’s. I had a sliver of bright expectation that there might be a menu rotation for next week (a new winter menu perhaps?). But nonetheless, I very much enjoyed my previous meals, and because I got the Western meal my first day, and should be released at 6-6:30am on the same day of week I arrived, I’ll only be repeating 5 meals. And I’ll definitely look forward to having some of my favorites again!
That is definitely one of the things I’m thankful for, during this quarantine period: three meals delivered daily to my doorstep, at more or less set times. No need to cook, no need to think about ordering food, no need to decide what to make or order, no need to decide when to eat. And because all serving ware and utensils are disposable, no need to do dishes.
Today was a yogurt (酸奶) day.
In the pastry department, there was a scallion steamed rolled bun (葱香花卷) that was nice and tender and soft, and still warm. Then there was what I see translated as “Cantonese sponge cake” or “mara cake” (马拉糕). It tasted quite similar to the brown sugar cake I’d had a couple times and loved, though because this one seems to be made with wheat flour (the ingredients I saw in a recipe online included eggs, flour, brown sugar, lard, and baking powder), it wasn’t quite as chewy.
Appearing for the first time was a chicken congee (鸡丝粥).
It was quite bland, so I sprinkled on my United Airlines black pepper.
That was still a bit bland, so I added in the baked seaweed from my office gift pack.
Needing even a bit more perking up, I added in the similarly bland hard-boiled egg (白煮鸡蛋) and several vigorous shakes of the Tapatío hot sauce bottle, and finished it up. The many iterations of congee!
8:16am - got the breakfast call
8:58am - temperature check
12:00pm - received the call to pick up lunch. Today’s lunch was a mandarin orange day. And again, it was a three protein, one vegetable meal.
There was a sweet and sour pork ribs (糖醋排骨). This is one of their favorite types of preparations: ribs that are breaded, fried, and then sauced. But that breading really gets rather soggy.
Much better was their “secret” roasted chicken wing (秘制烤翅根 mi4zhi4 - secret). I think I know their secret for why it tasted so good, though. The spice tasted the same as yesterday evening’s “Irish” roasted dark meat chicken! Now this is a preparation that I wouldn’t mind them repeating more!
The third protein dish was a very curiously named “orchid” pressed tofu (卤汁兰花豆腐干 lan2hua1 - orchid). Was there some kind of interesting vegetable in it, I had thought? But I didn’t recall any vegetables in the dish. Perhaps that “orchid” part refers to the very curious form of this tofu, where it’s kind of like one big connected piece?
Then there was a garlic stir-fried lettuce, or “A” vegetable (蒜茸油麦菜 A菜). This was a nice dose of veggies.
Finally, there was a vegetable Borscht (罗宋蔬菜汤 luo2song4tang1 - Borscht). This had a strangely thick texture. You can see how the spoon is kind of propped up all by itself in the soup. Besides tomatoes and cabbage, it unexpectedly also had these meat balls.
12:35pm - got a call saying that I’ll be staying another few days, so would I prefer the Chinese or Western menu? I replied without hesitation, Chinese! I’ve really been enjoying the meals here.
5:46pm - dinner drop off
5:55pm - picked up the food. Today’s dinner felt especially varied.
First, there was a whole yellow croaker in soy sauce (豉油皇小黄鱼 chi3you2 - soy sauce). This was yummy, with some crispy bits around the edges.
A very interesting dish was the celery stir-fried with preserved meat (芹菜炒腊味la4wei4 - “lap mei” preserved meat). Now, I had no idea that the word “lap mei” was in common enough use in English, so that the translation in Google translate for 腊味 was “lap mei!” I guess because of the strong Cantonese influence in the US, lap mei is common? Apparently lap mei fan, or preserved meat rice, is very popular.
So this lap mei included both what looked like preserved pork belly, as well as that kind of sweet Chinese sausage.
And yet another interesting dish was eggs scrambled with Laoganma hot sauce (老干妈炒鸡蛋). I didn’t know that was a thing! But I unfortunately didn’t get that characteristic Laoganma flavor. It just tasted salty. And was dry. I was so excited for this dish, but it was kind of a letdown.
For the vegetable dish, they cooked up carrots (well, one evident piece of carrot) with “doll” vegetable (胡萝卜娃娃菜). That doll vegetable was kind of like a napa cabbage, I think.
Finally, the soup of the evening was goji berries, shepherd’s purse, and rice kernel soup (枸杞荠菜米仁羹 (gou3qi3ji4cai4mi3ren2geng1). 羹 geng1 isn’t just soup, it’s this kind of thick soup, which is why the shreds of shepherd’s purse, that vegetable typically found in Shanghai wontons, appear beautifully suspended in the transparent liquid. The single floating goji berry was an artistic finishing touch.
Stirring the soup up, I surfaced the rice kernels. I’m actually not sure if rice kernels is the right translation - they seemed to be exploded in the way that corn becomes hominy, in that there seemed to be a lack of an outer layer, and the whole grain was quite large.
All of the soups at this quarantine could be described as “refreshing” at best, or “watery” at worst. This soup, in particular, seemed to really shout for a tiny bit more salt. I dug through my messenger bag, and finally unearthed my salt shaker from my United flight (I had only found my pepper shaker before). Just a few shakes of salt really made the soup more tasty. Not more salty, just more tasty!
6:07pm - received call to say I could pick up dinner.
9:39pm - so I had mentioned that I was grateful for having these delicious meals delivered daily, on a set timetable. Another reason I feel thankful is that the pollution outside was very bad today! Here we are at 9:39pm, and the AQI is around 187-193.
So it’s incredibly wonderful to be “forced” to stay indoors all day, and have no obligation to travel to the office or other places. Here’s a nighttime view.
And another view. (Basically, that building on the right is directly in front of my window).
So while I’m so happy it’s the weekend, it’s also a bit bittersweet because it’s just 5 more days until my release from quarantine. While at first I was bothered by the plastic floor (and still am, actually), and while I was disappointed that my application for 7 day hotel + 7 day home quarantine was rejected, I have appreciated many things about this hotel quarantine.
10:14pm - evening snack of kiwi and this chocolate shortbread peppermint creme cookie bark that I made and brought from San Diego.
