Support local business (kind of a catch phrase around our neighborhood in America)

In America, Aaron and I were pretty big restaurant snobs, desiring only to eat at local restaurants instead of chains - especially if we were going to a city we had never been before. We love Chick-Fil-A and Bojangles (apparently only fast food chains win our hearts over), but restaurants that are unique to an area will get my vote every time.

Luckily, here in China, we're surrounded by local restaurants here. Chain restaurants for us now have been reserved for fancy, once in a while meals -  like when you're having a bad day and are in need of a treat. We look forward to going to Thailand and going to Outback, Burger King, Swensen's, Tony Roma's, etc., for long awaited treats.

It's nice having many local restaurants, I guess.  But my snobbish ways are quickly dying, as Aaron and I have tried local restaurant after local restaurant to be disappointed, then end up one desperate night at Pizza Hut (the first two months I wasn't able to cook anything at home, because our kitchen wasn't set up.  So there were quite a few days that qualified as "a bad day in need of a treat" after eating the same food for weeks at at time). We haven't found any gems close to our home yet (gems - as in - "I'm tired and don't feel like cooking.  Let's just run right out to _____" type of gems).  BUT we have found a few restaurants that we are willing to walk a mile to get to, and one in particular that we hypothetically would  eat three meals in a row there.....hypothetically, of course:)

This is our friend, Mr. Joe (His last name sounds like Joe in English, so we'll call him Mr. Joe for the ease of remembering).  We stumbled upon his Japanese (he's not Japanese) restaurant one day, ordered his "beef rice" (which we refer to as teriyaki beef), only to fall in love and continuously come back 3 meals in a row (that's 6 miles of walking for that beef rice).  This is by far Aaron's favorite restaurant. 

delighting in the beef teriyaki

Señor Joe makes potato salad that tastes like american potato salad, fried mashed potato cakes (croquettes), asparagus wrapped in bacon, a stir fry beef and onion dish, chicken nuggets, and french fries. This guy is amazing! He also makes sushi, but we don't sully our palettes with that :)

the new creation
yeah, he cut the carrots to look like flowers

Last week, we convinced him to make us a chicken teriyaki - with broccoli and carrots, instead of his usual mushrooms and onions that he uses in the beef. At first he was hesitant, but he tried it for us. Aaron was a big fan. This item is not on his menu, but he told us he will make it for us anytime we like.

Random blog, I know. But I wanted to offer a little glimpse into our lives of the things we're really starting to enjoy about our city.