This photograph of me was taken by Pedro Pegenaute. This is a place I discovered on my first night in Shanghai, just 100 meters from my hotel and it turned out to be a wonderful spot where food was just incredible. On different days I gathered there with colleagues for dinner after very long exhausting days of wondering the Expo site.There was an brief english menu which I kept of exploring trying almost everything there was in offer. The dumplings were simply magnificent, pork and soups also delicious and the Aubergine with fish sauce was exquisite. Strange enough I had had a similar dish before in Belgrano´s China Town, in a restaurant called " Todos contentos" where I use to go with Magalí.
(As we all know to eat decent chinese food in Spain is simply not possible so every now and then one needs to go all the way to Buenos Aires to have good chinese dinner. Failing that there is always the option of popping down to London; going for lunch in China Town has become a ritual for me everytime I go to England).
By the third day they already knew me so as I was walking in, uttering a polite " Ni hao" they would smile back at me producing without delay, the english menu they knew I was after. Often I just picked it up myself from behind the counter. They didn´t seem to mind as I had become kind of familiar to them.
Food as I said was great, the place was casual, a cantina style.
Dennis Gilbert and I met after many years. I think last time we had dinner together was in Bilbao where we first met while photographing the Guggenheim back in october 97. A night to remember as with Juan de la Cruz, we all ended up on a beach, rather drunk taking pictures of the moon with a brand new lens that Dennis had just bought for his Linhof Technikardan.
I knew of Pedro by his work but we had never met before. It was one of those great surprises. He came to China with Ana, his girlfriend , and we had dinner together a couple of nights.It was very nice meeting them as i think there was instant chemistry, a kind of natural affinity between us. Both were charming and I enjoyed their company very much.
Last time I had seen Roland Halbe was back at the Zaragoza Expo where we both were working on Zaha Hadid´s Bridge Pavilion. Here he was busy working at the press office of the Spanish Pavilion.
