Sweet Shanghai
It’s been a wonderful week for Chinese food. There are so many excellent restaurants in Shanghai, and the food is so cheap in China! The only challenge is that most menus are only in Chinese, and hence impenetrable to me and most of my colleagues. You’ll have to bring a Chinese person and let them order everything. Luckily, everything tastes great.
Regarding the inexpensiveness, bear in mind that a full, 90-minute meal at a good restaurant, for 10 people, cost us all of $60. And at a conference we hosted, the dinner sponsor paid $3,500 for a banquet served to about 60 people (that includes renting the room and paying for the food, alcohol, and waiter service).
Some foods that stood out for me this time include: Flash-fried shrimp with a sweet coating, usually honey- but sometimes sugar-based. Even through they are fried, they come out light, like genuine Japanese tempura does. (The difference between American Chinese food and its genuine counterpart is the addition of much more oil and salt). The shrimp are whole, including shell, head, and eyes. But just pop them in your mouth and crunch them up! Attempting to peel them would be a real mess anyway. They taste great.
Also we had scallops served on the half-shell like mussels are in the US. They had been baked with a ginger-onion sauce and placed back on the shells. Delicate and delectable.
We also sampled a Shanghai specialty that was some untranslatable type of fish (they wanted to call it “firefish”). It is, of course, served whole, but the meat part of the body has been cut into spikes and fried like a “blooming onion” is in the US! Honestly, it looks like a blooming onion placed between the head and tail of the fish. You eat it by pulling off spikes of fish with your chopsticks, taking care to snag a little of the sweet onion sauce and pine nuts sprinkled over the fish. Again, even though it was fried, it did not weigh me down.
And many interesting vegetarian items. We had stir-fried greens that resembled clover leaf. And several types of bamboo shoots—both white and green. We seem only to get one type in the US, and they are inevitably canned, which lends a very different flavor. And mushrooms! So many kinds. Some are long and look like twigs, while others are so tender they can’t even be picked up with chopsticks by the Chinese people.
Also some interesting starch items, which come at the end of the meal, by the way. (You don't have rice with fancy Chinese food-- it's one of the final courses). One thing was jokingly called "Chinese pizza" by our Chinese colleagues. It is a flat, round piece of bread baked with garlic and various Chinese spices. Or maybe it's not quite baked; maybe it's made like a waffle. Anyway, it has some oil on the surface, and consistency more like a cinnamon roll than like bread. It's good. Also dumplings filled with meat that generates a lot of juice as the dumplings are steamed. You eat them by first punching a hole with your teeth so the juice can escape. If you don't, you end up with the "cherry tomato problem" familiar to cocktail party diners.
The theme that emerged is that many foods in Shanghai are sweet. Some are blatantly so, like the dates stuffed with rice gluten, then baked to perfection, or the fruit served as the last course of every meal (this is common in most Asian cuisines, actually). Others are most subtle, like the ginger scallops. But many Chinese people commented on this feature of the food, so it is well known. I rather liked it—the sweetness is not overwhelming; it is just the right amount to match the savory flavors. The whole effect is quite marvelous.
Regarding the inexpensiveness, bear in mind that a full, 90-minute meal at a good restaurant, for 10 people, cost us all of $60. And at a conference we hosted, the dinner sponsor paid $3,500 for a banquet served to about 60 people (that includes renting the room and paying for the food, alcohol, and waiter service).
Some foods that stood out for me this time include: Flash-fried shrimp with a sweet coating, usually honey- but sometimes sugar-based. Even through they are fried, they come out light, like genuine Japanese tempura does. (The difference between American Chinese food and its genuine counterpart is the addition of much more oil and salt). The shrimp are whole, including shell, head, and eyes. But just pop them in your mouth and crunch them up! Attempting to peel them would be a real mess anyway. They taste great.
Also we had scallops served on the half-shell like mussels are in the US. They had been baked with a ginger-onion sauce and placed back on the shells. Delicate and delectable.
We also sampled a Shanghai specialty that was some untranslatable type of fish (they wanted to call it “firefish”). It is, of course, served whole, but the meat part of the body has been cut into spikes and fried like a “blooming onion” is in the US! Honestly, it looks like a blooming onion placed between the head and tail of the fish. You eat it by pulling off spikes of fish with your chopsticks, taking care to snag a little of the sweet onion sauce and pine nuts sprinkled over the fish. Again, even though it was fried, it did not weigh me down.
And many interesting vegetarian items. We had stir-fried greens that resembled clover leaf. And several types of bamboo shoots—both white and green. We seem only to get one type in the US, and they are inevitably canned, which lends a very different flavor. And mushrooms! So many kinds. Some are long and look like twigs, while others are so tender they can’t even be picked up with chopsticks by the Chinese people.
Also some interesting starch items, which come at the end of the meal, by the way. (You don't have rice with fancy Chinese food-- it's one of the final courses). One thing was jokingly called "Chinese pizza" by our Chinese colleagues. It is a flat, round piece of bread baked with garlic and various Chinese spices. Or maybe it's not quite baked; maybe it's made like a waffle. Anyway, it has some oil on the surface, and consistency more like a cinnamon roll than like bread. It's good. Also dumplings filled with meat that generates a lot of juice as the dumplings are steamed. You eat them by first punching a hole with your teeth so the juice can escape. If you don't, you end up with the "cherry tomato problem" familiar to cocktail party diners.
The theme that emerged is that many foods in Shanghai are sweet. Some are blatantly so, like the dates stuffed with rice gluten, then baked to perfection, or the fruit served as the last course of every meal (this is common in most Asian cuisines, actually). Others are most subtle, like the ginger scallops. But many Chinese people commented on this feature of the food, so it is well known. I rather liked it—the sweetness is not overwhelming; it is just the right amount to match the savory flavors. The whole effect is quite marvelous.
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