This afternoon, Susan had lunch with a friend, Crystal, at the German Centre on Long Dong Avenue. She’s heard some great reviews about the food there and wanted to eat there. Dave and Crystal bought an apartment right across from us and they had just finished their “zhuang xiu” and was getting ready to move in. They started moving the furniture late in the morning, and Crystal wanted to have lunch at the German Centre. Dave went back to SMIC to work. By the way, they just had a baby boy, Riley Takeshi Liao, born on July 23. He’s a cutie – 50% Chinese, 25% Japanese, and 25% Polish. Not quite cute enough for us to want one of our own, but nonetheless, he’s adorable.
Anyway, back to the German Centre. They offer set lunch from 40-60 RMB (depending on what you order) and it includes salad, soup, entree, drinks, and dessert! Not bad at all! Susan ordered her favorite, beef lasagna, and was pleasantly surprised that it was really really good! It was meaty and the taste was excellent! She was expecting to be disappointed since she’s never had good lasagna in Shanghai. 
Her favorite remains to be Stouffer’s frozen lasagna that you can get for about $5 USD at Costco. She’s tried lasagna several times at various western restaurants in Shanghai but they have all been disappointing. The worst was this one new western cafe that she tried with her friend Aimee a few years back. On the menu, it showed a nice picture of lasagna and proceeded to list all the ingredients: pasta noodle, tomato sauce, beef, mozzarella cheese, cottage cheese, onions, seasoning, salt, pepper. It looked good so she ordered it and upon first bite, nearly vomitted her entire stomach content. Stuffed in between the flat noodles were ginormous chunks of mushroom! In case any reader didn’t know, Susan is deathly allergic to mushrooms. One bite of the venom would cause serious brain seizure. She spat the entire mouthful out, gurgled her mouth with water, and proceeded to hail the nearest waiter for some serious complaint. She would NEVER order anything with mushroom and demanded a refund/change of order. The waiter said they don’t list all the little ingredients on the menu, which Susan critically rejected. If they’re going to put salt and pepper on the ingredient list, then it’s wrong to add mushrooms where they DON’T belong. After fussing with the waiter and the manager, they took away the lasagna and gave her something else to eat. And all was well, except for the rest of the night having dry heaves and gagging msuhroom after-taste.
Since that traumatic episode, Susan has always been very cautious about ordering lasagna, making sure there ain’t no mushroom in there. So at the German Centre, she double checked the ingredients in the lasagna (made sure the waitress understood her English) and gave it a shot. It was delectable and very satisfying. The rest of the set was wonderful too. They served real 100% orange juice and the mango mouse cheesecake was heavenly! What a treat! The total for the set meal was 56 RMB! Definitely must come back here again! The real test is if they serve food that Jason can eat!
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