Food in and around the Expo

Living in Shanghai: Food inside the Expo Village and the Expo park

One of the most important questions to deal with every day is “What should I eat?” The answer to this question can be difficult, considering the culinary diversity surrounding and within the Expo Village. For every price range, time of day, speed of service, and distance from where I live, there are several options.

Within the Expo, there are several overpriced restaurants such as Bubba’s BBQ, NY Pizza, Masala Art Indian Cuisine, more than one sushi restaurant, Crazy Chicken, and several others. All of them were expecting far more business than they received, and some of them actually were not expecting much business but were forced (coerced) into opening a location inside the Village.

NY Pizza was one of the restaurants that did not receive as much business as its owners had expected (imagine pizza hut with 4 people inside on a Friday night). Maybe it’s because the crust was too thin and plain, the service was too slow, and they fell victim to the mistake of not bringing appetizers before the meal (very common in China).

Bubba’s BBQ was insanely expensive as well, but at least the food was somewhat tasty. Bubba came to China expecting to make a killing off of the money that visitors from all over the globe brought by taking advantage of how isolated the Village is and how much trouble it is to go elsewhere for food.

Masala Art Indian Cuisine is like many Indian restaurants: overpriced yet tasty. The menu contains a wide selection of Indian dishes from many different locations in India, several of which I have eaten and enjoyed.

For those Expo Village residents who have neither the time nor the money for one of those restaurants, there is always Family Mart; Family Mart is a common and popular chain of convenience shops throughout many cities in China and Japan. They offer several daily necessities, a large selection of beverages, prepared foods such as sushi and sandwiches, etc. It is the perfect option for parties (Qingdao is a popular and very cheap beer in China), late night meals, and even as a meeting place at one of their several tables.

Inside the Expo, there are many interesting and delicious options for park visitors and employees alike; KFC, Wishdoing, Papa John’s, Kung Fu Combo, Burger King, and Pizza Hut are several of the well known brands of restaurants available inside. Each one has lowered its variety in order to speed up service, for example Papa John’s only offers 4 different pizza options and they are cooked far in advance of when they are actually sold. For those without much money, there are several convenience stores (like Family Mart), small food booths with cheap stuffed buns and special Chinese desserts, and the many excellent staff cafeterias (staffeteria, for many of us). The one I would routinely go to has a wide variety of intricately prepared foods, rich with nutritious soups, vegetables, fish and meat options, a dessert booth with ice cream and muffins, and a beverage counter. All of the food there is incredibly cheap, mainly because it is subsidized by the Expo Bureau, and is thus unavailable to guests (the food can only be paid for with food credits deposited at the Expo Bureau itself). Almost all of my lunch breaks were at the Staffeteria so I saved a lot of money over eating at Family Mart or Burger King.

Many of the various pavilions also had small restaurants in which you could buy mostly authentic food from that country; the spices, vegetables, and preparation methods were all brought by the people who left their countries to work at the Expo. The Sri Lanka pavilion has excellent curry sauces, meat pies, and breads; the Norway pavilion has a delicious, fresh, and wide assortment of Norwegian seafood dishes; the Pakistani pavilion has BBQ shish kabobs, traditional Pakistani curry dishes, rice casseroles, and more; unfortunately, the USA Pavilion outsourced its restaurant and retail management to an Australian company called IVG, which decided that fast food (Quick serve restaurant) would be cheaper and thus make more money than serving various American foods would have been.