Weekend Cat Blogging with Luna: Gotcha Day Report

As regular readers know, last Monday, June 10, was Luna’s Gotcha Day. Thanks to everyone who sent her warm wishes. She certainly enjoyed her day.

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We also made a special dinner that we could share together. These fish cakes, from the book Meow Chow are both quite delicious and safe for cats:

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Luna was quite excited by the aroma of the fish cooking. And then it was time for her to enjoy her share:

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The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Nikita and Elvira at The Opinionated Pussycat.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Blog about dinner

We begin the recap of my extended weekend in Shanghai with another “Blog about dinner.”

It seems the custom with most Chinese meals at restaurants here is to order ridiculous amounts of food. This is what almost all of my Chinese friends here do when we go out to eat. Below is just a sampling of dishes from last Friday’s dinner.

As discussed during the first trip, Shanghai, and the entire Yangtze River delta region are known for seafood. The fish is very fresh and flavorful, but you have to accept that there are going to be lots of bones. Variants of fish cooked in wine sauce, as pictured below, are a common item on local menus.

Non-fish seafood is also plentiful. This squid was presented to look a bit like a fish.

The sauce in this dish was of course rather flavorful and complex, as are most of the sauces I have had in China. The range of sauces, spices and flavors is much richer than one experiences in Chinese food in the U.S.

Even something that seems prosaic like tofu in chili sauce becomes a unique experience. This one was served hot, both in terms of temperature and spice:

Indeed, the goal was to try and eat it before it stopped sizzling, as it is considered to lose much of it’s flavor as it cools.

Finally, something a little different: Crab meat in shells, again with a very unique but more subtle sauce: