Our Ex-pat Community, The Emerald, is a fun, close-knit environment of Westerners in Shanghai. Newcomers are welcomed with open arms and everyone is so friendly – a real community setting. This atmosphere and attitude has greatly helped Owen and I to settle in to life in China.
There are several members of our community celebrating their birthday in early September so one of our neighbours had sent an invite for Sunday brunch to join them in this occasion. We had Driver Fu take Matthew, Emma, Ava, Ethan and us to the hotel Intercontinental for a 12 noon reservation. When we arrived and said the name of the person organizing this get together, the response was “Ah yes, reservation for 70”!!!!!
Matthew, Emma, Sara, Owen (and Oliver who sneaked into the photo). Isabelle took the photo!
What a terrific gathering of people. All the children were spread across 3 tables, while the adults all grouped in tables of 6 -10. The Intercontinental Hotel also has a fabulous kids club, so after the kids had eaten they all disappeared to a separate room for arts and crafts activities, bouncy slides and reading – all supervised so the adults could really relax!
Wow – what another lovely selection of food! This was definitely the best selection of desserts and I especially loved the eclairs – passion fruit, raspberry and chocolate flavours. Owen liked the passion fruit tart the best. They also had some delightful chocolate lollies, which I had to try many times to ensure that they were all just as good as the first!
Owen really liked the Thai selection – he enjoyed some spicy crab, black pepper beef and chili chicken. I loved the Indian dishes – butter chicken and lamb rogan rosh were excellent (they have a real Indian chef which explains the quality of these!) There was a wonderful selection of sushi, seafood, salad, pasta station and crispy duck pancakes.
The Thai Selection
The Indian Selection
Crispy Duck Pancakes!
The Seafood Selection
Salad and Shooters
Sushi and Tempura
These chocolate lollipops are filled with little explosions of heaven
This was the kids favourite – chocolate fountain (marshmallows and fruit to dip), plus sweetie jars! This area got multiple visits from all the kids…..
Wonderful flavours in these eclairs 🙂
Passion fruit tarts (bottomm right) – Owen’s favourite.
It was funny to watch the older kids with their heads down into their video games/cellphones etc. All the little kids were busy in the Kids Club making felt slippers, notebooks, reading books or playing group games with the supervisors.
“Don’t interrupt our games!”
“Ok, we’ll smile for a picture……”
Jenny, Sara, Owen, Matthew, Emma & John
Oliver’s favourite – the marshmallow covered in chocolate
Isabelle loved the fruit juice shooters
Lovely neighbors!
More lovely neighbors…
Even more lovely neighbors
And, even MORE lovely neighbors…..
osiochina 