Hangzhou (杭州)

These stove tops suck!

Apparently, in Hangzhou (China) at an elevation of 141ft (43 m.) cooking fried potatoes on the LongHill Hotel boiler plates takes nearly 45 minutes. The good news is that they're actually quite good because :

1. It's been a long time since I've had fried potatoes.
2. The Italian made (is that supposed to be a mark of luxury) stovetop is of prosumer grade: the brand and price are selected for a crowd that (supposedly) thinks it understands it all but doesn't know jackshit. For instance, the device assumes it knows better than you do how to control temperature, which isn't a really good idea (I know how to cook, just give me control over max heat and I'll take care of the rest, thank you very much.) In short, I'm glad that despide apparences, they can do the job.
   

Well, I'm having home made fried potatoes in Hangzhou. Yum. One day, I'll tell you how I fared in my quest to make something that looks like bread in the land of rice.