"Hoi Wei"

Sometimes in Shanghainese restaurants, you get given little dishes of pickled onions or pickled vegetables. As opposed to peanuts, which are designed to stave off that intense hunger that makes you bolt the first few dishes, leaving you less able to enjoy the rest of your meal, these are designed to make you hungrier.

That's right, hungrier. These sour, slightly tangy vegetables get the salivary glands going and are what we call "hoi wei". Or, in English, 'open your stomach', which should make you hungry for the dishes to come.

Which is exactly what this little post is. A small, tangy little bit that should make you hungry for more. But first, a bit of a drought because I'm off to Spain.

And which restaurant should be in Spain? Any hugely famous ones?

That's right kids, I'm going to El Bulli. This is thanks to a kind invite by a very, very well respected blogger. I'm also going with some other special people but I'll leave it up to them to "hoi" your "wei”.