No dinner problems the last couple of nights at least!

....as we have gone out. I promise to next time take pictures - I got a new small digital for Xmas for the purpose of snapping pics while out and about and I am still in the "oh I forgot to bring my camera mode"...but its coming, really.

Thursday we went to a wine dinner at Lawry's Prime Rib hosted by a wine store we frequent here. It's called Napa Reserve and they are a distributor of only Napa wines. Their family owns Howell Mtn Vineyards in Napa, are Chinese and they have this store here to sell Napa wines in China. The son, Zeon runs the store here and they always have fun wine activities. The dinner was yummy....scallops, prime rib, etc - with way too much wine and champagne flowing a bit too fast. (as in, you have one sip and they are adding more to your glass!) This is good, but not sure it is so good on a Thursday night when you have to get up early the next day! We brought along 2 other couples and there were about 20 people total there. Was very nice. I will digress momentarily to an event I went to a couple months ago they hosted. E was traveling so I took a friend and it was an Opus One tasting, with wines from 9 different harvests. The president of Opus was there and spoke about the winery, and all the scoop. They had prepared a specific amuse bouche with each wine and it was really nicely done. I was quite glad I went despite E being gone.


Friday night, despite the fact we were pooped, we ventured out to the Shanghai World Financial Center for dinner. This is currently the tallest bldg in the world and really amazing to go to the top and see the city. We however, didnt go to the top, we did the opposite and went to the basement! I had heard they have a food court there (yes, called a food court?) so we thought we would give it a try. Well, this was nothing like a food court, trust me. Next time, as we will go back, I will post pics. It was incredible. There were about 12 different choices of "restaurants" and it was very upscale - tableclothes, silver, waiters, a very nice cocktail lounge etc. The kids were thrilled to sit at the sushi bar and have yummy fresh sushi. I was happy to have a brickoven pizza from one of the better italian restaurants in town that has a branch there. We definitely stood out and as we walked to each spot to look at the menus the people working there had seen us arrive and wanted us to sit in their area. Pricewise, it was a bit more than you would pay at a US food court...ok a lot more, but it was really not food court dining, it was more a restaurant type atmosphere.

Tonight, well, we are going out again! Michele was a bit disturbed I think, we are eating out and taking the kids, but oh well. We are going local here to a chinese restaurant - the traditional kind with the huge round tables and you order a ton of stuff to try. We're going with 2 other families which always makes it fun. Maybe, just maybe, I will take some pictures! all for now!