Feasts & Friends

The Redang Island Café in Shenzhen is not really a café. It’s a Malaysian Restaurant in Fumin, close to the Futian Border Checkpoint. Lots of teachers from Green Oasis seem to live in Fumin. Maybe that it is because rents are a bit cheaper than Futian or perhaps because it is closer to Hong Kong. On the other hand, it might be because there are so many good (and reasonably-priced) restaurants in this district of Shenzhen.

Even though we have been going there for nearly five years, Irena and I nearly always have the same main dish: the mango fish. It’s a wonderful spin on the traditional British fish and chips (or chish and fips, if you like silly jokes). The mango gives the fish a special freshness and the spicy sauce certainly makes a change from the usual vinegar. For good measure, we also added some curried vegetables. 

Having introduced us to so many restaurants in SZ, it made a nice change for Irena and I to take our dear Chinese friends Bill and Julia to a restaurant that they had never been to before. And yes, Bill enjoyed his Tiger beer and I enjoyed mine!

There was more feasting when we came out of the Children’s Palace MTR station, but of an architectural kind. The new art museum was not open, alas, but it was still a most impressive building: dramatic, angular and surprising. Of course, Shenzhen does not have a Coliseum or a Parthenon, but this city does have an amazing array of modern architecture. I cannot think of any city in the world where so many remarkable LARGE buildings have been built within such a short period of time.

Today that naughty dog Diudiu took Bill, Julia, Irena and me for another walk in Central Park. Although they are called “parks”, really it might be more accurate to call them “botanical gardens” because of the variety of the plants and the trees. I was not feeling my best, as I was still feeling tired after a long week at school and going to Baoan church on the Friday night, but the greenery and the good company soon cheered me up.

After our walk in the park, Julia insisted on lunch at a rather nice Chinese restaurant in a big and swanky shopping mall. The décor was Chinese, in a darkly trendy and ethnicky sort of way. I was decidedly hungry and the food was yummy, but rather unusual. The starter or “appetiser” looked like a loaf of bread, baked hard on the outside and with the inside cut into pieces. On top of the bread was a round scoop of ice-cream! The pork and spicy chicken were good. Although the mushrooms were cold, they were delicious and wrapped in a parcel made from thick rice paper. There was no Tsingtao, alas, so our drinks were wheat tea and soya milk. Yes, it was a bit weird, but nicely done.

Bill told me an interesting little nugget of information: most Chinese shops in shopping malls make hardly any money at all. It is the restaurants that are always busy and keep the malls open.

As you are probably wondering about it, I will tell you that Bill did, of course, take home a piece of chicken for Diudiu.