Around Town Monday Morning

Was surprised to see Puma's store at the Place closed down this weekend, but the sign was still up, remodeling or is it the first retail victim of the economic crisis? The Macau restaurant was as packed as ever though....Having not visited Nanluoguxiang and Gulou Dong Dajie in awhile, I was surprised by the large turnover in stores and restaurants in this area, but the people were still lining up for Wenyu Nailao and Plastered and Woo both appeared to be doing great business...During my time in the area, I also sampled a ziran yangrou pie from the pie stand at the northwest corner of Nanluoguxiang, a great mix of Chinese ingredients with the UK/Aussie pie wrapping, especially for RMB5...NLGX recently expanded their shop to include shoe offerings, including the newly hip brand Huili...The venerable Chinese old famous brand, Hundun Hou, is now offering the interesting curry beef hundun...Looking for something different? Just east of Nanluoguxiang's south entrance on Dianmen is a LvRou Huoshao (驴肉火烧）ie donkey meat chopped up with cilantro and green pepper and then added to a long, hot shaobing is unbelievably good and you can make a meal of a couple and a bowl of soup for less than RMB15, perfect for our economical times...tried Guomao Kaochi on Time Out's recommendation and was disappointed, the wings were decent (but not the best I've had) and the service was horrible...