best chili in Shanghai?

Twenty different varieties of chili con carne, al fresco in the seventy degree heat, folks wearing burnt orange and Aggie maroon, live covers on acoustic guitars, and free-flow San Miguel.

I had the pleasure of selling raffle tickets to unsuspecting revelers for most of the afternoon and pouring drafts for the rest. It was for a good cause, though, with more than 5000 RMB raised in raffle tickets alone (and probably more than five times that in ticket sales and cook-off entries). While making my rounds, I met quite a few American expats who pleasantly surprised me by being not nearly as obnoxious as our reputations will have us. A good number were from the Lone Star State, others from Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, etc. They were fun-loving, proud of their respective NCAA teams, and perhaps even prouder of their chili.

I tried probably half of the chili entries in the contest, and I must say - with complete objectivity – that the best chili I had was appropriately named Bevo's. I missed the announcement of the contest winners, but if Bevo's team won, it's sadly ironic that the Longhorns lost their title hopes on the very same day.