Wagas Cafe, Donghu Rd, Shanghai

Fresh from a recent trip to Shanghai and Nanjing, author Walter Mason writes a guest post for Noodlies, Sydney food blog.



Let me just say at the outset that no-one is more committed to the glories of the 5 Star hotel breakfast buffet than I. The heaven of coming down to groaning tables of things you’d normally never eat, even at midday, is just about the best part of any holiday. But at the same time I am, by nature, an abstemious type. I come from a Methodist family, for heaven’s sake. So unless I am travelling with the famously indulgent Mr. Noodlies, I tend to stay at a more humble class of hotel where, even if breakfast was included in the tariff, you wouldn’t want to eat it. I remember once staying at a “boutique” hotel on Suriwongse Rd. in Bangkok, and when I came down for my all-inclusive “Continental” breakfast the young man staffing the front desk made me some toast (at the check-in counter), poured me a glass of tetra-pack juice and waved me off to my busy day.

Cafe Dan, Shanghai, China

Fresh from a recent trip to Shanghai and Nanjing, author Walter Mason writes a guest post for Noodlies, Sydney food blog.

Shanghai is a big place, and if you are travelling by yourself it can, quite frankly, become a little daunting. All alone there recently, I felt drawn to the groovy and very intimate Tianzifang precinct. This is a gorgeous collection of little connected alleyways filled with groovy shops and any number of intimate (in the extreme!) restaurants, bars and cafes. Tianzifang is, as my local friend says, “old-style Shanghai,” and I feel completely at home there.



There is a fabulous shop in one of the alleys selling Tibetan beads, jewellery and religious implements, all at outlandish prices, but presided over by the most magnetic (and gorgeous) shopkeeper, whose handsome, muscular form beams out at you from photographs placed throughout the shop of him and in the embrace of various Tibetan Buddhist masters. In Tianzifang there is also an outlet for Demeter perfumes, surely the kookiest parfumier in the world, with its fragrances recreating almost to perfection such distinctive smells as ‘Snow’, ‘Rain’ and – my favourite – ‘Earthworm’.

Chilli and Spicy Restaurant, Chinese, Haymarket

Chilli and Spicy is yet another Shanghai restaurant in Chinatown.  It's located in the Breakfree on George in Haymarket, with entrances on both George and Sussex streets.  Normally I avoid hotel restaurants like the plague, but we hate queueing even more.