素八仙 Snow Peas, Sesame Oil, and More

Pinyin: sù bā xiān

At one time I really was not a fan of sesame oil, but those nutty flavors have really grown on me. Sesame oil is used a fair bit in Chinese food so you have the opportunity to encounter it in a variety of dishes.

In this case the dish is primarily fresh uncooked snow peas and a few other vegetables including green and red peppers and bean sprouts. It's an all vegetarian appetizer served cold and crispy. Sesame oil is really the primary spice added so it's got a strong presence in the dish but isn't overwhelming.

Overall I like it a lot. I'm trying to eat healthier and this is an excellent vegetarian dish to help that along. Snow peas are uncommon enough to add nice variety and get you warmed up for the rest of the meal.

蟹粉蒸饺 Crab and Pork Steamed Dim Sum

Pinyin: xiè fěn zhēng jiǎo

Something a bit different today. A little Dim Sum. Dim Sum as Americans know it, is more of a Cantonese style food. Dim Sum is essentially the Chinese equivalent to finger food and it's usually eaten while drinking tea. Lots of time the dishes are sweet and dessert like in nature, although that's obviously not always the case.

These steamed dumplings are filled with a mixture of pork and crab meat (which means they are salty/savory rather than sweet). I'm not usually one for liking crab, but I do like Dim Sum. Since I don't much care for crab I couldn't say I loved the taste of these little dumplings. The crab flavor was quite strong, the outer noodle shell was nice, not too chewy, yet it didn't just fall apart. And the little orange red things on top were just for looks essentially.

I'd definitely recommend trying some Dim Sum while your in China, there are tons of options available. For me I won't be getting these crab dumplings again, but hey if you enjoy crab, more power to you.

XO酱草虾 Shrimp with XO Sauce

Pinyin: XO jiàng cǎo xiā

Shrimp are just damn delicious so they frequently make their way to my dinner table. I'll give this dish bonus points for looking great as well as tasting great. I've never been huge on presentation one way or the other, growing up eating home cooked American meals of potatoes and canned vegetables there wasn't a lot in the presentation department, but I'm learning to appreciate it.

The shrimp have been sliced along the bottom from head to tail and they've been cooked in XO sauce. Then stacked nicely on this dish with just a few sprigs of onion added on top for some color contrast. XO sauce has a unique flavor that is sweet and salty and in my opinions suits an American palate quite well.

It was a bit strange that the shrimp were sliced along the bottom. It allowed the juices to sink in which was nice, but it was slightly different getting the shells off, more difficult but not impossible. This dish was a definite win and I won't hesitate ordering and then devouring it.

Update: A similar dish I wrote about before: 油爆虾 Shrimp Stir Fried in Soy Sauce

东北酱脊骨 Braised Pork Spine

Pinyin: dōng běi jiàng jǐ gǔ

A dish fit for a man. Meat and bones greasy and fried, not much in the way of spices or strange flavors, just meat and grease.

I've never had braised pork spine before, it seems as though it's a lot like pork ribs, but more difficult to eat. Trying to dig in to the corners and crevices while keeping the cheeks clean was basically impossible. After the fact I'm not really sure that you could give the bones to a dog but I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

The only real complaint I had was that it was a bit greasy, overall the dish was just OK, nothing to rave about.

干拌牛肉 Spicy Sliced Beef and Cilantro

Pinyin: gān bàn niú ròu

Sorry for the strangely colored picture, the dish looks much better in real life. This is one time where the beef in China isn't so bad. In general the beef dishes suffer from extremely poor quality beef that has been soaked in far too much tenderizer which I've complained about before.

This dish on the other hand contains decent quality meat that is fairly lean and not too chewy. It's a spicy appetizer that feels very fresh on the tongue. The spiciness real bites at your mouth, but the cilantro just makes it feel so nice and clean. The peanuts add a little crunchiness and manage to mask the spiciness.

This is really a great way to open up a meal. The explosive pepper flavors open up your eyes and really get you craving relief from what is to come, yet all that meat feels so good in the mouth you've got to keep going back for more.

年糕八爪鱼 Octopus and Rice Noodles

Pinyin: nián gāo bā zhuǎ yú

Visually it's hard to get a feel for what is going on here, so let me explain. The rectangular block shaped things are a sort of rice noodle called nian gao (年糕）, they remind me of rice dumplings. There are also bits of baby octopus, some peppers, scallions and a few other minor ingredients. The whole dish is cooked in a thick sweet brown sauce reminiscent of terriyaki sauce.

It's classic Shanghai style cooking. The rice noodles, the seafood, and the thick sweet brown sauce are all commonly associated with Shanghai style food. The combination works very well together, the sweetness of the sauce is counterbalanced by the thick noodles which also provide some unique texture while the octopus adds that seafood flavor and a meaty texture.

A real surprise find for me and I'll be searching out dishes of this nature in the future. I'd like to find more options with those rice noodles and I'm always a sucker for something sweet.

八宝菜 Eight Treasures

Pinyin: bā bǎo cài

I saw this dish on a table next to mine when I walked in to this restaurant and it looked great. I'm a fan of peanuts, and I saw it had carrots and cucumbers, tofu, meat, and more. I had to have it. Come to find out this dish is actually called the Eight Treasures Dish. It has everything mentioned above as well as mushrooms, peppers, and peas.

It really reminded me a lot of Kung Pao Chicken, of which I am a huge fan, but with more variety. My hopes were dashed though upon the first bite. The dish was quite oily and the sauce was very dark and heavy feeling. It was a bit saltier than I would have liked even though the overall flavor was good.

I had such high hopes and like so many things in China those hopes were dashed. I still think that this dish has great potential if it was done right. Given the right restaurant I'd try this one again, though I think most of the cheap local places would abuse this by over oiling it, so be warned.

The Plague of MSG

I don't have a new dish today. I've been busy with work and life and everything else so I haven't really been eating much in the way of dinner lately. Today though I wanted to talk a bit about one of the most unfortunate things about Chinese food. On the surface Chinese food is great, lots of vegetables, little bits of meat, great variety, but under the surface a nasty little devil lurks in the form of MSG.

MSG has been used naturally in Chinese food for hundreds or even thousands of years as a flavor enhancer. It wasn't until the 20th century that it was isolated and reproduced in a lab leading to its widespread proliferation in food.

The taste of MSG is called umami which is technically one of the five basic tastes (the other four being sweet, sour, salty and bitter). I personally think umami tastes very similar to salt and in a lot of ways I think MSG is used to replace salt in Chinese food.

There is a lot of controversy about the safety of MSG but after doing a bit of research on the net it appears as though most of that is just hype. There is an MSG effect for some people who are hypersensitive to it. I sometimes think I get headaches caused by MSG after eating particularly bad Chinese food. But in general the FDA and just about everybody else considers MSG totally safe, even for babies. There's a few indications that MSG may eat your brain, but nothing is proven yet so no harm done.

Frankly at this point MSG is in just about all our food. Basically every prepackaged snack food in the US is loaded with the stuff. So there ain't a whole lot you can do about MSG, though if you go to a restaurant in China you can ask them to skip the MSG and they are more than willing.

豆浆火锅 Seafood Soy Milk Hotpot

Pinyin: dòu jiāng huǒ guō

God how I used to hate seafood. Crab would just about make me sick and clams, muscles, oysters were all too disgusting to actually eat. Fish was only OK as long as it wasn't too "fishy" tasting. But my oh my how things have changed since living in Shanghai. Seafood is amazing. All those little hardshell things like the clams and muscles and oysters are great. Shrimp are to die for, lobster is incredible, and just about every fish imaginable is excellent, cooked or not.

This seafood soy milk hotpot mixture was pretty tasty. Lots of good seafood, though not enough shrimp in my opinion, though one can never really have enough shrimp. The clams were a little chewy though so that was a real drawback, they obviously used cheap seafood as opposed to good seafood. But there was also tofu to be had aplenty and tofu is another one of those things that I've come to love in Shanghai.

There wasn't anything over the top about this soup it just worked out to be a good combination of seafood and tofu. Interestingly the soup was made from soy milk though that didn't affect the taste one way or the other, it just made the soup look a bit cloudy. I'd really like to see how another restaurant pulls off this dish. I won't be so inclined to order it again from this place, but I think the idea has potential.

原鸡汁笋丝 Spring Bamboo in Chicken Broth

Pinyin: yuán jī zhī sǔn sī

It's November now and this dish really hit the spot. It's a combination of spring bamboo, mushrooms and assorted vegetables served in a bowl of some of the tastiest chicken broth I've had in a good long time. It really brought back memories of mom's home cooking after a long cold day of playing outside.

Real authentic Chinese food is sometimes so dangerous as it more often than not brings fire to the table in the form of a small plate of napalm underneath a bowl of food, as was the case with this dish, but it's also great to know that the food will be hot until you finish eating it. Somehow I can't really see this style of cooking going over well in the all too paranoid safety conscious American society, but I'm certainly going to enjoy it over here.

I will certainly be hunting this dish down again, and it's simple enough and tasty enough that I might even give it a try in my own kitchen.