Alas, as you will have gathered Orient Expressed will be expressing itself no longer as our correspondent has run off to Japan to learn the ways of the Samuari.
Still, hopefully it entertained and enlightened and fret not because there's some damn good stuff available on the Caterer Blog, Kitchen Rat and the Editor's Blog that you should check out instead.
And don't forget Caterersearch for all your news and information needs pertaining to hospitality.
From the low-brow to the high brow. I swapped the plastic bibs for starched napkins and the braised crayfish for beautifully steamed shrimp tonight, at Family Li Imperial Cuisine on the Bund.
The occasion? Li being the first Chinese restaurant (in China - in fact may be Chinese restaurant anywhere) to be accepted into Relais & Chateau (R&C).
Perhaps this is not such exciting news in the UK, where R&C has a staid and old-fashioned reputation (although this is, it must be said, hardly something they are ashamed of, I would imagine, judging by the properties they choose to be members - uh oh, you know what I mean, the properties, not necessarily the cooking - take members like the Fat Duck and the Vineyard, not old fashioned at all... er, let's get back to the evening). But here it is another little detail signifying everyone's obsession with being here.
Xiao long xia season has arrived and the city is tearing these little crayfish limb from limb.
It's not pretty but it sure as hell is tasty, and on any given street you can see hitherto civilised people jostling and pushing their way to the front of queues that lead into the bustling canteens where the little crustaceans are being served.
This is not a rarefied experience. After waiting half an hour for a spot, you get marched to one of the formica tables and are packed in, sat down and given a menu.
It was off to the Tongchuan wholesale seafood market again this weekend. It was the third time I have been and it is one of the best nights out you can have in Shanghai.
The place is chaotic, huge and dirty, and it makes our own Billingsgate look like the Harrods Food Hall.
However like Billingsgate it functions as the city's wholesale market. But unlike Billingsgate it is also like a giant restaurant.
Last week a friend came over from London for a week with his girlfriend, to visit me of course, but also to celebrate his birthday somewhere a bit different from the White Horse in Brixton.
He wasn't disappointed, not least because we went to the Shangri-La's fine dining effort, Jade on 36, for his birthday blow-out.
Now hotel dining in Shanghai is often tarred with the same brush as hotel dining is all around the world. There are lots of eat and drink all you can Champagne brunches (good value, but not exactly discerning) and "Global-village-world-food-stations" where cuisines from everywhere from Kerala to Kentucky are shoe-horned into a menu.
But at the Shangri-La they have managed to create a restaurant that means business, both in terms of those looking to impress their guests (a view across the financial centre Pudong or back to the West and the Bund) and those who come looking for serious food.
I had the pleasure for the first time last week of tasting snake wine.
Myself and a colleague went on a midnight bike ride to research a story he was planning on "Shanghai Afterdark".
Before you snigger and roll your eyes, the concept for this was family friendly - well, not that you'd necessarily be taking your five year old out at 3am in Shanghai, but you know what I mean: above board, legal, something you'd tell your mum about.
We didn't want to talk about clubs, restaurants, and, er, massage parlours and bathhouses. They get enough attention in the press here already.
One of the treats in my life in the last few days (actually, in the last few months) was to go to Jean Georges Vongerichten's restaurant here in Shanghai - when the great chef was in town.
Jean Georges, as the restaurant is called, is consistently spoken of as one of Shanghai's best places to eat, and I am not going to disagree.
While there is a lot of debate about whether acclaimed chefs can successfully roll out a fine dining concept around the world, Vongterichten has, in Shanghai at least, proved you can.
The chef has a collection of enough restaurants in his adopted city New York (nine), as well three or four others dotted across the US, a few in the Bahamas, one in Paris, two at at 50 St James's in London, and this one here.
Not all of them are fine dining, and he has several different concepts, but it testament to his skill and business brain that he can make it all work. In fact it was just after I'd read an article about Gordon Ramsay's teething problems in NY, that I was sitting down to Jean Georges in Shanghai, about to have one of the best meals in recent memory.
The food is heavy on the Asian influence that has typified much of Vongerichten's cooking. There was picked crab with a mango foam, king fish sashimi with frozen wasabi balls, a more provencale-inspired with fish placed over jerusalem artichoke hearts and tomato, but still ablaze with scents of spice, and a chocolate dessert flavoured with cardomom.
Excuse the delay in posting this latest entry. I've had my mum and one of my sisters to visit. They arrived at the weekend and have been cooing and gawping their way round the city since. That tall building syndrome thing again. For these two however the skyscrapers have really gone to their heads - or at least the gins and tonics and white Russians served within the skyscrapers. Whereas most people go on pub crawls, these two have made it a personal mission to visit every sky-high bar in town.
Eating out is part of Shanghai everyday life, full stop. When there are places, literally holes in the wall, where you can get lunch for 20p (40p if you splash out on pork balls) then why would you go through the bother of cooking? Certainly not at lunchtime when instead of eating something cold and then reheated that you've dutifully brought in from home, you can eat something mouth electrifying, fun, and I think possibly medicinal.
Let's get a few things straight before we go any further. It's true, here in Shanghai there are a lot of very high buildings. You probably will have heard about them.
Every time a foreign journalist is dropped into Shanghai to stoke up the fires of this, possibly the most hyped city in the world, and then return home to write something sensationalist and nine times out of ten wrong, they always mention the buildings.
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My name is Dan Bignold and I am a writer working in Shanghai. Some of you will have known me when I worked on the Caterer, being bossed around by Amanda, James and Mark. Now I get to boss people around myself, editing the city's weekly guide to going out in the city. Like the Caterer this includes writing about the best food and the hottest bars and restaurants. Unlike the Caterer it also means interviewing DJs, artists and, er, where the best places are to buy shoes.