Madden about Burgers

Dan's new shoes

Dan & I spent an idyllic Sunday at Sanlitun The Village. I managed to coax him away from the new WOW update for a short while ( Hurray!).

I was at the same place for 2 consecutive days. Why? While shopping with Addy on Sat, we saw a new burger joint at Nali Mall. I HAD to try it. I've been wanting to eat a burger for the longest time. Not the crapo fast food burger. It had to be a gi-normous burger that would sate my ever hungry self. And SATISFIED I was at the new Let's Burger. I had the Cheeseburger for 58 RMB and Daniel had the Classic at 48RMB. The prices are a little steep for burgers that aren't served with any sides but the burgers were excellent. Juicy and of a good size. Not as big as Carl's junior burgers you find in Singapore. But big enough to fill you up. Between both of us, we also had a Mango Smoothie ( 32RMb) and Spicy Fries ( 25RMB). The smoothie was fantastic! Had little chunks of mango below. The fries were thick-cut, more like chips than skinny fries, and well seasoned. There was a sauce bar where you can select out of 11 dips for your fries. We tried the hot & sour sauce, the honey mustard and the mexicana. The first 2 went well with fries but I think the Mexicana may have gone better with chicken wings which the burger joint also serves.

our sumptous burger meal!

Other reason for being at Sanlitun? There was a sale going on at Steve Madden. Since I'm not earning any money, I figured I shouldn't be spending any . But Daniel did need a new pair of shoes and the men's range was on sale at Steve Madden. If you've tried men's shoe shopping in Beijing, you'll realise that (a) the formal styles are hopelessly hopeless (b) ridiculously expensive since you probably need to buy branded for it to look half decent (c) it's only possible to buy decent sneakers which obviously don't go with everything.

So I was real glad to see that the men's shoes on sale were really nice. They were also reasonably priced ranging from 350 - 1300 RMB ( about SG$70- SG$260) after discount for leather shoes. So after a couple of tries, we found the perfect replacement pair!
I must say, it was a most enjoyable Sunday…

Addresses

Let's Burger

D101a, Nali Patio, 81 Sanlitun Beijie, Chaoyang District
朝阳区三里屯北街81号那里花园D101a

Steve Madden

F9-13, The Village at Sanlitun, 19 Sanlitun Lu, Chaoyang District
朝阳区三里屯南路19号三里屯Village, F9-13

My very own yoda

As you can obviously tell, I have rediscovered photoshop AND I have a library of cat photos to tweak.. hahaha

Ody's nom nom nom

Well i guess you'll only get it if you've visited icanhazcheezburger.com
I love the site for my dose of cat cuteness

You know its winter in Beijing when...

1. shops start selling knee high boots
2. women strut around in knee high boots
3. you see blue skies and sunshine
4. the city is covered in fog not pollution
5. its stiflingly hot in public indoor spaces because heating is at full blast
6. the cats sleep in the centre of the bed
7. the cats spend even more time sleeping
8. the cats are fluffier and look like fur rugs when they sprawl on heated parts of the floor
9. you have to double the cat feed since the cats eat more to keep warm
10. you get zapped by everything thanks to static
11. it's dark as night come 4.30pm
12. you can chill wine on the balcony
13. you feel like the Michelin Tyre mascot cos you're bundled up in layers of clothes

online shenannigans

First it was with ctrip with the hotel we got in Shangri-la. In case you haven't heard me complain about this yet, the hotel we got in Shangri-la had NO HEATING. That's right. None. It was between -1 to 11 deg celsius on the days we were there and our room was unheated. Luckily, we overheard our local tour mates say that they took the matter up with ctrip and were changing hotels. And we did too, else I would have frozen to death in that room. Since then, I've been calling Ctrip to get a refund cos they made the mistake of not getting the facts right on their website! After several calls and one nasty mail, they've finally given me a refund solution and restored my confidence in their service. Phew. That was tedious considering how the words in Chinese tend to escape me when I get frustrated.

Now, I'm up against a new online monster ...trying to purchase something off taobao. Apparently, it's easy but after 2hrs of fiddling with it this morning, I've decided it's not. I can't figure out this whole payment thing! In Chinese no less!! It requires an additional step of activating some option on my ibanking account. I tried but failed. And upon trying to log onto my ibank account, I realised that I got the password wrong. These mistakes culminated in me getting locked out of my ibank. I spent 1 hr sitting at the bank getting this fixed ( another nightmare cos of my new passport number) and I still can't log on!!!!

This is annoying me BIG TIME. The only reason I'm persevering is for Daniel. I'm helping him get a new 3D graphics card while he's away, so that the card will arrive when he gets back, in time for him to fix the computer and play some new World of Warcraft update this weekend. What this means is that I'm going through one MAJOR irritation to bring about another minor irritation of having Daniel glued to the computer this weekend... sigh...at least he's already warned me months in advance. Daniel, you better be grateful. And no, I didn't kick your computer to make the existing card go kaputt.