Saturday Night at Kana’s and the Baozi Debacle v.2 (With Restaurant Reviews)
(I cannot begin to describe how inexplicably pissed off I am considering I just wrote all this and then hit a wrong button and erased it all. God Damn it.)

Anyone who knows me can attest to my penchant for drink. Oh, how I love to embibe the sweet spirits that send my head swooning into thoughts of fancy and soothe my aching muscles from too many trips to the weightroom (by the way ladies, GregEZ a.k.a. Big Cookie is looking totally Diesel.) Along with drink’s good friend, Mr. Cigarette McSmokessogood Esq. the two coalesce into my most favorite duo of vices. (Yes, more than my love for the tactile ecstacy that is the commingling of cocaine and black women I find that smoking and drinking are the two things closest to my plaque covered heart.) Similarly to the way a fine, aged Cabernet Sauvignon compliments the taste of a tender, rare filet mignon, I find the combination of cigarettes and alcohol to be my most welcome companion in any social setting where lively conversation and good times are the name of the game.

As the old saying goes, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” and a bender is no exception. One must properly prepare and a good meal is the first step towards an enjoyable evening out, “Ty Cobbing,” it with friends. One must know to eat the right things when planning on drinking in excess, and nothing absorbs alcohol like fat (actually nothing else absorbs alcohol). Don’t delude yourselves out there. Bread does not work (sorry frat boys), in fact I would keep my carbohydrate intake to a minimum. An appetizer plate of Genoa Salami has saved my ass more times than dinner rolls and spaetzle ever have.

There is absolutely nothing wrong to treating yourself to a fine dinner after a long week of work. I find it most necessary every once in a while to spoil myself with a fine meal with friends. In Hangzhou there are two restaurants this newcomer (please read: me) knows of that fit the bill to a “T.” The first is the Shamrock Pub, a gorgeous bar and restaurant located in one of Hangzhou’s beautiful historic districts. There’s live music (which we didn’t stay for but by God they have it) and a wonderful set menu consisting of a three course meal in which I highly recommend the Greek salad, either the pork chops, or New York Strip, and the apple cinnamon fritter a la mode is to die for. It costs 90 RMB (a little over U.S. $11) and comes with either the house red wine (which is divine) or a Carlsburg which comes in a mug slightly smaller than a stein. Slightly. Coffee and/or tea is also gratis. The proprietress is a lovely woman from Manchester who knows how to cater to the needs of her clients as we were taken care of wonderfully through out the course of the evening.

The other establishment is the Hill Street Bar and Grill (which isn’t on Hill Street and thankfully has no affiliation with that crappy cop drama from the early 80’s). The main draw of this place is the bacon cheeseburger. After living in China for a while and subsisting on Chinese food a familiar taste from home is truly appreciated and the Hill Street Bar and grill has, by far, the best burgers I’ve found in town. In fact the first time I went there with my friend, Brussell (pseudonym), we were almost brought to tears by the sheer taste alone. It’s really good. Expect to spend around 77 RMB (a little less than U.S. $10) for the burger and fries and about 22 ounces of Carlsburg (it’s an abundant beer here). I recommend the Carlsburg because a can of coke is only 2 RMB less expensive and isn’t nearly as satisfying. Tack on a another 25-48 RMB for a dessert which is alright but ultimately forgettable and not worth it.

For the man on the budget however and the man on a mission. (Mine being to get drunk and then some.) I had to forgo the fancy dinner and resign myself to a more common fare: streetfood. Now don’t scoff, streetfood here actually differs from streetfood in the United States. It’s actually good. My personal favorite being baozi. Not only are they delicious but economical as well. As where the two meals mentioned above will cost you close to 100 RMB a piece, the going rate for baozi (at least the baozi I eat) is 1 RMB for two (about 12.5 U.S. pennies.) You can’t beat that with a stick as far as I’m concerned and they are deliciousness squared.

For those of you who don’t know, baozi are steamed buns filled with anything the chef desires. Typically meats and vegetables, but sometimes seafood and even sometimes fruit. Technically I guess you could cram anything in there like batteries or dog vertebrae and call it baozi but people around here tend to stick to more traditional ingredients. My favorite are the meat baozi or as my students call them, “Chinese Hamburgers.” Below is a picture of baozi:

Anyway, back to last Saturday night. School was over for the week, Friday night was a non-event, or I just can’t remember. (Actually it was quite eventful, but it was all a blur until Ralph (pseudonym) reminded me just now.) The Philadelphia Flyers were dealt a detrimental early season blow towards their run at the Stanley Cup when John “God Among Hockey Players” LeClair sustained a foot injury that put him out of the line up for two to four weeks. Thankfully I had Carl there and he knew just what to say to pick me up. “Dude, we need to get some fuckin’ baozi up in this bitch!” I concurred. Baozi was the perfect drinking base to use to fill up my duzi (stomach) before I started bombarding it with libations. There are a myriad of streetfood vendors (All basically the same. A cart, heating elements, food, plastic bags and chop sticks.) outside the gates of ZUCC but only two do I frequent with any sort of regularity. One of them is the baozi lady. A slightly rotund older woman with no feeling in her hands and a style of spoken Chinese we all find incomprehensible. Well, anyone speaking too quickly is incomprehensible to me but that’s because my Chinese sucks, but it’s getting better, but I digress. Her Rou Baozi (steamed buns with meat) are the best. They are filled with just the right amount of pork and garlic. She also pan sears her baozi which gives them a wonderful chewy/crispy texture that’s mouthwatering. Carl and I beelined for her cart and ordered ten only to find that she had none ready, we would have to wait. Well Carl and I were really stoked for these baozi so we had little recourse. This lady had the best baozi by far of any I had and she was also the closest so we gritted our teeth till they were done. However upon their completion she took them not to the usual tray she used to cool them but hurriedly starting dropping them, five each, into two bags (we had ordered ten. 10/2=5.) One bag for me and one bag for Carl. I quickly paid the nice baozi lady and gingerly (as gingerly as a man as manly as me can) walked back down the street towards home. That lasted about 3 steps when I felt something fall on my foot. The blazing baozi were so hot that they melted through the bag and had fallen all over the road. My delicious bag of steaming deliciousness was now littered all over the road, a karmic sacrifice for the dogs to dine upon. I was pissed off (about as pissed off as I am right now for having to type this all again.) I was swearing in English and Chinese to let everyone know how pissed I was. At twelve and a half cents for two I could have just as easily gone back and bought more but I felt at the time that that would be a major loss of face. Chinese culture is very much concerned with this concept of losing face (public embarrassment or disgrace) and we were as susceptible to it as anyone else. The greatest thing about Carl is that he is always right there by my side to point out that I have lost face. The manner in which he alerts me of my folly is also quite comforting because not only does it add to my initial embarrassment but also notifies everyone else within a five mile perimeter that the white guy he’s laughing at is a total biter. I tell you with friends like Carl who need self-respect. Confidence?! I never heard of it! (For the record, I love Carl.)

So needless to say, I was pissed. Our substantial ten baozi meal was now down to a paltry five, two and a half a person. Carl’s bag was holding strong as he handed it to me while he went inside the convenience store on campus to buy drinks. I stood outside, fingers carefully hooked around the fragile handles of what have to be China’s crappiest plastic bags while my other hand hammocked about a inch below the satchel of scalding “flavor orbs” (my name for baozi if I ever market them in the U.S.) I should have made prior plans for the inevitable breakage of said bag but chose to think optimistically which was stupid because the fucker melted and broke about fifteen seconds after Carl set foot in the store, leaving me alone to juggle five demon dumplings that were of a temperature ungaugable to anyone outside the field of volcanology. I saw Carl peek his head around the farside of the first aisle trying his best not to laugh embarrassingly loud at the scene playing out before him through the shop window. No don’t run out and help the guy dancing around like Rupricht the angry monkey. Just stand there and laugh and taunt him with a handful of cold drinks. I sat outside for close to a minute yelling Hot! Hot! Fuck! Hot! Shit! Ow! It Burns! Fuck! Help! But no one did. I finally had to run into the store yelling in pain and desperation where the clerk, God bless her, deftly opened up a bag of high enough integrity to contain these sizzling spheres of Satan.

On our way back home I was seething and in between bouts of laughter, Carl tried his best to make me feel better. To a large degree he succeeded (as he usually does) because by the time we got to his place I was psyching myself up for our night out while I cooled my raw hands on some icey Pabst’s Blue Ribbon. To his credit he had a strong arguement, which was pretty much, “Greg, dude, there’s no reason to stay upset, because it can’t possibly get any worse for you tonight. You got no place to go but up.” And thus far he was right. I wasn’t attacked by dingos nor did I accidently shit my pants at anytime walking back to our apartment buildnig so nothing but sunshine and smooth sailing for the rest of the night (please note that for the entirety of the evening I did not soil my trousers.) Furthermore, we were hanging out with some friends of ours from across town and we always have fun with them so after a few more PBR’s we were off.

The plan was simple. Carl and I were going to grab a cab and head downtown to a bar called, Kana’s Pub, with our friend, Dwayne (pseudonym). It was here where we were going to hook up with our friend’s from across town, Renny, Karah, and Leather (all pseudonyms). Kana’s is a really chill place run by this pleasant guy named Kana (coincidence?) It has a full restaurant (review coming) upstairs and a wonderful bar and DJ downstairs. We started the night with pints of Carlsburg while we waited for the others to arrive. Carl and I were rounding third beer when Renny and his lovely girlfriend arrived and ordered some really good looking mixed drinks. Nothing special, just a Long Island Ice Tea and a White Russian, but when you are drinking Carlsburg everything looks more enticing. About thirty seconds later Carl and I looked at one another in a way only two people as close as us can. A way that needs no words to communicate because everything we need to know about one another is written all over our eyes and our eyes read, “We need shots.”

A good bar should always have a lot of variety in their selection of shots, shooters and mixed drinks, as well as a staff that can cater to the needs of today’s drunk. Kana’s obliges without hesitation. Not only is there selectin great but they have concoctions I haven’t found anywhere else. For example, the shots were a pretty standard lot until we got to the last one on the list, and it was apparent that that was the shot for us. The name alone beckoned us and it quickly became a moral imperative to take this shot on the sole fact that it was named, “An Abortion.”

An Abortion is basically a half shot of Sambuca and a half shot of Bailey’s Irish creme, with a little aesthetic twist. After the shots are poured the bartender adds a shot of marichino cherry syrup that taints the frothy Bailey’s head red with what appear to be drops of blood. As the syrup falls through to the clear Sambuca layer it coagulates and twists into this red clump at the bottom of the glass. Disturbing to say the least. Carl and I were aghast because we didn’t see him add the marichino syrup we only saw what appeared to be a tiny, bloody worm resting at the base of our shot, but like troopers, we toasted with, “Fuck it. It’s China.” and slammed them back, and I have to admit (and this is probably the only time I’ll ever write this) abortions are delicious! We had two more like fifteen minutes later.

Carl and I were almost crying from the fits of laughter brought on by just how innappropriately named that drink was but we were able to choke back the tears. We were unable to show the same kind of restraint though when Kana’s became inundated with Europeans. Not just any Europeans but a special minority of Europeans that can be recognized by their complete lack of style, their gravy-thick arrogance and their complete disregard for common hygenical practices. Christ, this one French queef smelled like he bathed in sewage and Brut. Hence the tears. These increasingly not so rare folk come from all over Europe but can be spotted congregating in large groups and chances are you’ve seen more than your share on TV shows like E!’s Wild On: Ibiza. They are called Eurotrash. Now I don’t want to get in a big thing about this but they are a pestilience. There is not a landscape they have not tainted with their foul existence and attitude and apparently there isn’t a destination exotic or remote enough where you won’t find these obnoxious, backpacking slugs sliming their way through to this year’s “hot new disco.” For a good description of these types (remember they only comprise a very small percentage of Europe’s population) check out:

Carl’s Pertinent and Well Crafted (not to mention funny) Diatribe on Eurotrash

And for those of you who don’t get the E! channel here’s a prime speciman:

They aren’t all that ostentatious but you get the idea. Some of them look like you and I, just smellier, like the clean cut Aryan, Hitler youth that was trying to box me out at the bar where Carl and I had been waiting patiently to order more Abortions. I had to shove him with my back because he was jamming his elbow into my ribs so he could get the jump on the bartender and order three “Kah-Lo-Nahs” for his equally pretentious friends, Dieter and Gerhard. Well needless to say he didn’t get them before we got our drinks (because we were there first! ASS!). Hey Gunther! You’re country’s full of pussies and you haven’t provided shit to the realm of good music since Brahms! I poop on your country, and your fuckin’ suck ass rock bands like Rammstein and Kraftwerk. You’re whole fuckin’ scene is pathetic. You are a joke, you’re fucking clownshoes! Prick. Nice outfit.

On the whole, besides the Eurotrash, the night was great. We had a lot of laughs (Dwayne, Carl and Renny cracked me up), did some dancing (this 6 foot Russian bitch had the most incredible ass! if she hadn’t been fifty and really haggard I would have been all about it). I spoke with Kana for about 20 minutes and he is a really cool guy with a great sense of humor. I also had nice conversations with Karah and Leather who loves the Chinese guys (just kidding).

Overall it was a good night (Kana’s ruled!) and it did only get better like Carl had earlier prophesized. Grant it I still went to bed alone but that’s not so bad. I was apprehensive towards bar girls in the States, in China, with Eurotrash?! I’ll sugar my own churro thank you very much. Below is a picture of churros: