My 9th Birthday in Shanghai

Backdated: 13 August 2015

I celebrated my birthday for the 3rd time in Shanghai this year. This year will be my last single-digit age number. Everyone around me keeps telling me how much I have grown and matured during the last few years and I kinda agree too haha. I am about 143cm tall now, almost as tall as some of the shorter adults that I know of :p

OK, back to 13th August 2015... It was a hot summer weekday (Thursday). I was on summer holiday while daddy went to work as usual. Mummy suggested a half-day outing to the city and the destination was picked by me, of course. We went to the Nanjing Pedestrian Street because there were 2 things that I enjoyed doing there - sitting on the "choo-choo train/tram" and visiting M&M's World...

Huan ying lai dao Nan Jing Lu Bu Xing Jie!

M&M's world

They were having sales...what perfect timing so mummy bought me some birthday gifts ;)

For lunch, I wanted to have char kuey teow (my favourite food) and the easiest to find Malaysian food there was Secret Recipe. 

Jalan-jalan after makan

Oh, nearly forgot my train ride! RMB5 per ride, per person.

Afternoon snack back at Sky Mall near our home.

Mummy also bought me a simple birthday cake from the same mall... a Mickey-shaped plain cheese cake

Macam-macam poses with the cake

Walked out to Sky Mall again for dinner when daddy came back after work. I picked this western restaurant where daddy and mummy ordered a family set meal...

Soup and bread

Crab cakes

Panfried chicken with mushroom sauce

Some grilled duck or something, cant remember haha...

Squid ink pizza

Tiramisu

After dinner, we went home to cut and eat cake ;)

The following day, mummy's good friend (a fellow Malaysian who lived in the same apartment as us) insisted on giving me a birthday treat at a Hello Kitty cafe in the city. Thank you, Aunty A. We miss you very much!

9 years, 9 different looks! 

Eating Out 7 - Ikea Restaurant

Ikea is one of our favourite weekend lepak places. There are at least 3 Ikea stores in Shanghai and the nearest one to our home is just a few Metro stations away. Every time we miss home, we will just head to this Ikea and imagine we are in Mutiara Damansara haha! After all, the sight, the smell (especially) and the Ikea feel are the same everywhere :p

Dining here is something that we always look forward to. Besides the usual Swedish stuff, they have localised flavours (rice sets) to suit the Chinese palates as well...

The dinning area is HUGE! 

Children's play area

We usually order this Family Set, which comes with 2 mains, a kiddy meal, a salad and 2 refillable drinks. RMB59 (RM30)

Ikea's most popular... Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam and mashed potato, RMB15 (RM8)

Salmon and spinach lasagna... we love this! (not sure of the ala carte price)

Poached salmon, RMB29 (RM15)

Hot smoked salmon (thoroughly cooked) with veggies and pasta, RMB23.50 (RM12)

Kiddy meal, RMB12 (RM6+)

Braised pork rice, RMB18 (RM9+)

Vegetarian rice, RMB16 (RM8+)

Mushroom rice, RMB16 (RM8+)

Assorted fresh fruit juices (blended on the spot)... RMB10 (RM5+)

Refillable coffee RMB5 (RM2.60)

Ice cream parlour

Quite pricey at RMB15 (RM8) per scoop... but very rich and delicious!

Clean plate every time we dine here.

Snack counters... we only buy 1 thing from here - the RMB1 (RM0.55) sundae cone. The hotdog sets are available here too (but we've never tried it). In Ringgit, all these are at almost half-price. Pretty cheap! Too bad, no curry puffs :(

Our must-have, even in winter! ^^

Eating Out 6 - Yuji Restaurant

This is one of our favourite restaurants and we didn't know the name of the restaurant until recently :p (it's all in Chinese and we never bothered to find out). All this while, we have been referring to it as the "brown sofa restaurant" because that's what the restaurant is furnished with haha! Well, let's see what's good in this "brown sofa restaurant"... 

Streamed silky smooth egg with shrimp and clam... This is our absolute favourite and we ALWAYS order this dish whenever we dine here. However, in our most recent visit, the restaurant has changed their menu and this dish is no longer available :(

Cold taufu with soya sauce and century eggs

Fish slices in spicy and sour soup... a very flavourful dish but the fish is very bony

Cauliflower... Shanghai's "signature" veggie dish (prepared the same style in all restaurants here)

Sweet and sour pork... Yummmmmy!

Braised egg and taufu

We love this huge pot of soup... the soup is bursting with flavour and ingredients, from prawns, meatballs, meat slices, fish balls, fish chunks, dumplings to veggies and black fungus. Superlicious!

Forgot what noodle is this... looks plain but very tasty!

Another Shanghai specialty... Lotus root stuffed with glutinous rice. It is a sweet dish, more like a dessert. Nice!

Every meal here never disappoints! :)

This was the same restaurant that was blogged here.