So Maybe I Got Spammed – Cha's in Shanghai, China

Not worth it...

Lovable bun, with lovable butter!!!

So maybe I kinda deserve this, but no one deserves to get ripped off, so I'm going to go off on this place. Cha's is not good. I know, I'm in China I was bound to get ripped off some time right? Well yeah maybe I did but that doesn't really make any of this better. Anyway Winnie and I are tired out of our wits, and we see on a website that Cha's is a recommended place! Hey! That's great! I get really antsy about going to a place that isn't recommended online when I travel, so I do a lot of research beforehand to know where I go. Today was the first day that I was forsaken by the food website recommendation gods – Cha's is a no go if you're ever in the area.


So we were hungry and tired on a rainy day in Shanghai  and we wanted something nice, cute and seemingly trendy so we checked out Cha's on Nanjing Dong Lu in the 668 Nanjing Lu building. The blog recommended to us the pineapple bread and instant noodle with luncheon meat, and I thought that the instant noodle was special or something so I decided to go along with it (I later found that I was also pretty dehydrated so that may have factored into my poor decision making). When we walked in, we were sat down at a table with the menu peering at us through the glass tabletop. We decided to order the pineapple bread, the instant ramen with luncheon meat, a chicken curry rice and a shrimp with egg plate. The first thing that went wrong was that we were both very thirsty, and all they gave was tea. Granted, this was a matter of circumstance, but when we tried to order water it turned out to be 8 RMB (more than a US dollar). Now some of you guys may be thinking, oh yeah, $1 isn't that bad for water. But considering the prices of everything else on the menu, one would expect the water to be free! The pineapple bread was reasonably priced at 8 RMB, the chicken curry rice was 46 RMB, the instant ramen was 28 RMB, and the shrimp with egg was 49 RMB. And while the conversions may seem to make the dishes seem worthwhile, it's more than just the numbers I have an issue with this place.

Well, at least it was good.

To start off this tirade, I call the chicken curry rice to stand. Normally, I'd love some chicken curry rice – when I was a kid and my mom made this at home, I couldn't wait for the spicy potatoes and chicken to mix with the rice, giving texture to the beautiful popping spice off the warm curry. In terms of the curry, the dish was great. The curry was hot and spicy enough for Winnie, as someone who doesn't like spicy thing, to enjoy the curry and rice portions of the dish. Meanwhile, the chicken had a few little problems: namely the little bones still in the chicken. I'd imagine a place like this to not have little bones stuck in the chicken, especially in curry. And if they were going to put little bones in chicken, the least they could've done is warned us before one of us bit through the otherwise nicely cooked chicken and painfully closed down on a little chicken bone. Final verdict on this plate: would've been nice without the little bones.

Chicken Curry Rice

Next, and the thing I have the biggest issue with, is the instant noodle. I take this a little personally since I was imagining hat for 28 RMB you can put a little more than 2 pieces of spam and instant noodles into a bowl and serve it to a customer. I guess not, since that's all I got. Not even some veggies, not even some egg mixed in. Completely dumbfounded and disappointed could sum up my reactions when the waiter plopped the bowl down on the table. I'm usually one to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt, so I decided to dig in what I immediately decided was a very normal bowl of instant noodles. It was disappointing. Whatever you can make at home for the same amount of money would definitely be better than this – and I can say that this time because it's fucking instant noodles. Okay - maybe I'm a little wound up about this – but it's okay to get mad about being scammed right? Maybe being scammed is an elementary part of travel, you can't escape it and it always happens at least once in your trip. Well, seeing the circumstances of today's meal, not only did Winnie and I get scammed, we were decidedly: spammed.

I actually liked this

You can find me on Instagram as @stumpyeatsfood and on yelp at theplumpcat.yelp.com. You can also check out more of my photos on Flickr! If you've got a restaurant recommendation or even a recipe that you think I should try, send it to me at ryanjchen2@gmail.com! Thank you for reading!