Shanghai Hotel Quarantine Diary: Day 2
4:17am - Wake up. Jetlagged. But now I have some time to study the menu that was handed out yesterday some more! It’s become quite the source of entertainment. I come to the realization that the repertoire of chef for the Western/International meals is limited.
For lunch, one of the sides always alternates between fried egg and scrambled egg. For dinner, one of the sides always alternates between hash brown patties (I think, 炸薯饼), and roasted potatoes (which I had last night, the 香草土豆). For lunch, bacon appears one day and breakfast sausage appears two days (like yesterday at lunch). And I think the Sunday lunch as baked beans with tilapia.
With the daily appearance of eggs and potatoes, and the addition of bacon, breakfast sausages, and baked beans, my conclusion is that the kitchen probably just doesn’t know or have a lot of Western foods or recipes, so they put the “international” foods that would normally go in the hotel breakfast buffet into the lunches and dinners!
7:43am - I hear the breakfast being distributed. Pick up the breakfast sometime later.
8:17am - Thank goodness I already picked up the breakfast, because the call to remind us to pick them up comes quite a bit later. Since I called yesterday asking to change to Chinese meals for the remainder of this week, this was my first taste of the Chinese meal plan. There was a big fluffy mantou (刀切馒头), two shrimp har gow (港式虾饺), the same boiled egg (白煮鸡蛋), and a very oily, crunchy youtiao crueller (油条). And a soy-dairy Vitasoy (维他奶).
This breakfast, while not exceptional, was still a great improvement compared to yesterday’s very dry bread feast. Here there was at least a variety of textures and the bit of shrimp in the har gow was a good break from all of the starch. Still, I pulled out the bottle of hot sauce I brought over, which helped liven things up!
Somehow I’m still hungry after breakfast, so I eat the bread that they offered at the Xuhui district desk at the airport.
It’s so soft and moist and buttery! I wonder what kind of food science leads to this level of softness and fluffiness in a shelf-stable product.
9:35am - trash collection and disinfection.
9:37am - temperature check.
11:40am - I hear the lunches being placed on the stools. And today I got a delivery from the office, with snacks for quarantine!
Wow, now look at this lunch!
Garlic shoots with cuttlefish (蒜苗炒目鱼).
Shrimp wrapped in crunchy noodles (泰汁金丝虾). The Chinese description mentions something about a Thai sauce, but I didn’t notice that. In any case, these seemed really special, like something from a dim sum cart.
Some type of cabbage simply stir-fried (清炒杭白菜).
Surprisingly savory corn kernels and peas (青豆玉米粒).
Kelp and daikon soup (海带味增汤). This had a very light and delicate flavor. And it’s so pretty!
Plus there was a banana. This lunch was fresh, delicious, with a nice variety of vegetables and comparatively little starch, compared with yesterday’s lunch and dinner. This seals the deal: I’ll order the Chinese menu for every day next week.
2:55pm - temperature check.
5:45pm - dinner is dropped off. I wait about 10 minutes to pick up, because I want to be sure the staff are out of the hallway before I do so. Looking through the peephole at the rare activity in the hallway is kind of fun!
This dinner looks very promising too!
Short ribs with onion (好味骨). This was very tasty, but had to watch out for broken bone pieces.
Wintermelon with some sauce (家常冬瓜).
Fermented black beans with another type of leafy green (豆豉春菜粒).
Curry crab meat balls (咖喱蟹粉球). These were really special and interesting!
Inside of these conical fish balls, was a crab meat and roe filling. Tasty! And the curry sauce was nice and spicy.
Goji berry, pearl barley, and spinach soup (枸杞珍珠米菠菜汤). This was also a very beautiful soup! I think being served in these translucent plastic containers actually helps me appreciate the different colors and shapes, and the ingredients at different levels.
While I see a translation of 珍珠米 as pearl barley, the texture was more like corn without the topmost layer of skin.
6:37pm - they call to check if I’ve already picked up the dinner. Thankfully I did, because this reminder call was almost an hour after the food was dropped off! This was a really delightful dinner, and I was so full after eating.
