Patience and pastries

WE'VE become suckers for a food queue.

"Hey Wes, what's going on over there? I need to see. Oh those (insert food here) look divine. If all those people are queueing for them, they must be good - maybe the best in Shanghai, or China maybe. Hmmm...I wonder what they are?"

But oh how curiosity can waste a morning, as we discovered on our wanderings along Huaihai Lu in Shanghai on Friday.

It started out just as above. In the downstairs foyer of a restaurant, five cooks were manning six enormous shallow friers, turning and prodding little mounds of pastry, embossed with a red ink stamp, until they turned golden brown. And the smell! Oh the smell! It's no wonder delerium set in.

There was a sizable snaking queue for these prizes and after a bit of debating we thought, what the hell. If 50 locals are willing to wait, well they must be good. Plus, we're on holidays. What's 40 minutes or so for the best anonymous pastries in Shanghai.

So we hopped in line, much to the amusement of a few other queue-goers who had probably surmised that we had no idea what we were queueing for.

"Something yummy, I hope," I would have said if I could speak Chinese.

10.45am. At first we chuckled about our curiosity. We made bets about what was inside the pastries - I was hoping for a sweet nut/seed mixture; Wes thought something meaty. I briefly pondered the possibility we were lining up for liver, intestines and lungs.

11.15am. "It's a bit strange we haven't moved yet," said Wes.

"Hmmm," I said. "I bet they're waiting until 11.30am then they'll start selling them. Let's wait just a bit longer." Meanwhile, enormous piles of pastries were piling up and disappearing while more and more people joined the line - now up to 70 - despite looking at the queue in disbelief.

A decrepid Grandpa turned around to us and said, "Three or four hours. Very long time." I thought, "Ha! You silly old bugger, you're trying to scare us out of the line. Very sneaky. I don't think so, buddy."

11.30am. All of a sudden we had to stay. We'd already waited 45 minutes and I bloody well wanted a reward for our patience. And there was no way I was going to break the queue - it was a mission.

"But we haven't moved," said Wes.

"I know," I said. "What is happening? This is ridiculous. But everyone looks so patient. I can be patient too."

Soon we felt like we knew everyone in the line. Red Shirt was the "Cutting-the-Queue" police, zipping up to the counter to have-a-go at someone - anyone - and reporting back to The Patient Ones With Shopping Etiquette. When the assistant sold any pastries to the Queue Cutters, I thought there might be an uprising; a coup headed by Red Shirt herself. We could storm the lobby and raid the pastries.

11.45am. "I can't believe we've waited an hour," said Wes. Should we go? we debated. But we've already sacraficed an hour, we thought. It can't be much longer.

"I will die if they're not the best pastries I've ever eaten," I concluded. Oh the pressure!

12.15. As we neared the front of the pack it dawned on us that people were walking away with up to eight packets of eight pastries, those greedy bastards. Ridiculous, I thought. "They should bring back Communist rations," Wes said.

12.30 Almost there, almost there. Hurry up Gramps. Aaah, our turn. Utter joy.

So were they worth waiting 1hr 45mins for? They were hot and oily with a meaty centre and incredibly rich thick pastry. Quite bland too - crisp on the outside but almost a little under-cooked throughout.

Is it wrong to want some tomato sauce? I thought. Probably.

I managed to eat two; Wes managed a few more; we both burned out mouths in sheer desperation. No regrets, but now whenever I spot a food queue and get excited, we do have a little chuckle. hehe.

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