水晶虾仁 Cyrstal Shrimp

Pinyin: Shuǐ Jīng Xiā Rén

Just looking at these gets my mouth watering. It's pure ecstasy in it's utter simplicity.

Plump shrimp that have been suateed in a little oil till they burst in your mouth when you bite into them have been laid out on a plate. In the corner of the plate is a small bowl with a splash of vinegar thrown in for dipping purposes.

The taste is heavenly, the shrimp are slightly salty but still fresh and lite. The vinegar adds a little acidic bite to them for just the perfect twist that makes it such a mouth watering dish.

过桥米线 Yunnan Rice Noodles

Pinyin: Guò Qiáo Mǐ Xiàn

It seems as though more often than not when you go to eat out in China you also have to do at least a little cooking. Case in point is this dish of Yunnan Rice Noodles. The waitress brings around a tray of food stuffs as you can see in the picture, and soon follows up with a bowl of nearly boiling broth and noodles. The responsibility is yours to put all the stuff into the nearly boiling broth. Including a quail egg, a slice of raw fish, a small piece of mostly cooked chicken and a variety of other things. It's important to move quick here and get the egg and raw fish into the broth quickly so that they have sufficient time and heat to properly cook.

After everything is in the soup, the real enjoyment can begin. By the time you put everything in the soup and convince the waitress to take away the empty trays, everything inside the soup is cooked and you can begin eating. You not to soft and not to firm, and there is a variety of goods in the soup. The brot won't be disappointed. The noodles are done just righth is a slightly salty yet ever so tasty chicken stock with undoubtedly a month's worth of MSG, but such is the price one must pay for that salty deliciousness.

Price is not bad either. Depending on the tray of goodies to throw in with the noodles a serving will run between 15 and 30 RMB. I don't actually remember the price I paid but it wasn't outrageous. One of these restaurants exists near the top of Grand Gateway Mall in Xujiahui and another resides in the basement of Raffle's City. It's a chain, but I haven't found any other place to get Yunnan style food in Shanghai.

私房煮干丝 House Special Julienned Tofu Stew

Pinyin: Sī Fáng Zhǔ Gàn Sī

A soup that isn't a soup. Shrimp, tofu, and veggies in this soupy broth. As it turns out the soupy broth is quite good and worth drinking, even though it technically isn't a soup.

The food in and of itself is good. The tofu and shrimp are nice, a little salty, but extremely tasty. The big green leaves were spinach like in nature which automatically make it good.

I've never had this dish before, but I'd gladly have it again. The shrimp were a bit small and seldom discovered, but the tofu was plentiful and ever so tasty.

油爆虾 Shrimp Stir Fried in Soy Sauce

Pinyin: Yóu Bào Xiā

Shrimp is becoming my new favorite food. As it turns out they are reasonably cheap here in Shanghai and the cooks (calling them chefs is an injustice to chefs everywhere) can do amazing things with them.

These shrimp are simple enough, lots of oil, bit of ginger, and some soy sauce. Stir fry them together and vuala you end up with this dish. It's all shrimp and it's pretty tasty.

Unfortunately those lazy cooks, they didn't bother to remove the heads, shells or tails! Well it's unfortunate right, but not a show stopper. The real show stopper is that in China you aren't supposed to use your hands to touch your food. That means using only your chopsticks and your mouth you need to successfully de-head, de-tail, and de-shell these shrimp. Needless to say most locals are ruthless about it and if you aren't equally skilled you'll walk away hungry.

京酱肉丝 Pork in Beijing Sweet Sauce

Pinyin: Jīng Jiàng Ròu Sī

This dish is practically made for fresh-off-the-boat Westerners. It's sweet and has a nice juicy sauce, the meat is just meat and isn't from strange parts of the pig's body, and the meat is sitting atop some pretty benign shallots.

However, on a regular basis, or even irregular basis I can't be eating this dish too often. It really is too sweet for my Chinese adjusted palate. I ended up eating most of the shallots and just a little of the meat.

To get an idea of what this dish tastes like, think Beijing Duck, just the poor man's version, pork no duck. That's basically what this amounts to, the taste is almost identical to Beijing Duck, without the duck, and without the funny little tortilla shells to wrap everything in.

XO酱炒螺片 Spiral Snails with Broccoli

Pinyin: jiàng chǎo luó piàn

Classifying this as seafood is a stretch cause the snails actually come from the river, and calling them spiral snails is quite a stretch as well. In actuality I don't know what it really is. It's certainly a snail like creature, I'm pretty sure it has a spiral shell, and it's pretty damn big.

So often I haven't a damn clue what I'm sticking in my mouth over here. I would say that eighty percent of the time I'm able to figure out what it is with a fair bit of certainty. But then there is that other twenty percent where you just aren't sure. The waitress might say it's meat, but that's about as much detail as she'll divulge. Then there are those times where you don't want to ask questions cause you are afraid of the answer.

Is it better to know, or is it better to remain blissfully ignorant?

咸鸡 Salted Chicken

Pinyin: Xián Jī

I started chomping down on this dish when my friend asked me what I thought of it. Before I could answer he piped in and said he thought it was pretty good.

After I managed to spit out a few of the bones I told him I thought it was good, but just a bit salty. He threw up this face that just screamed, stupid boy, and said uh ya it's called salty chicken.

Doh!

Well how was I supposed to know it was supposed to be salty. Anyway that is OK as an American I like salty food. I could do without the chunks and splinters and bone fragments throughout the chicken, but such is life in China.

韭菜螺蛳肉 Stir Fried Leek with Snails

Pinyin: Jiǔ Cài Luó Sī Ròu

It's hard to recommend snails to anyone. There's too much American left in me, but honestly they aren't that bad. In reality they don't have a strong flavor to them. If you didn't know better you could mistake them for mushrooms.

Leeks are sort of strange to just eat as is. Like the snails they don't have a strong flavor about them, but they are a little stringy in nature.

So this is a basic dish, simply leeks and snails stir fried together in oil with a little ginger, salt, and maybe some garlic.

干煸牛肉丝 Spicy Fried Beef Jerky

Pinyin: Gān Biān Niú Ròu Sī

I love beef jerky and I who doesn't love fried food, so put them together and it's a match made in heaven, a Chinese food heaven.

Judging by the spicy nature of this dish and the meat involved I'd have to say it's a Si Chuan dish. Oh yah, and the fact that I ordered it from a Si Chuan restaurant. Mind you though, it isn't that spicy, just enough to be flavorful.

Doesn't the meat look so nice and tender, LOL, it's not at all, it's a bit crunchy which is kind of a welcome change. It's not often that one has crunchy meat. So as a change from the norm and a pretty taste food regardless, this dish has become one of the ones I feel good returning back to.

海鲜锅巴 Sweet and Sour Shrimp over Rice Cakes

Pinyin: Hǎi Xiān Guō Bā

Every once in awhile you run across one of those dishes that you just think to yourself "damn this is pretty good", well this is one of them!

I just recently got back from a trip to Wu Hu in Anhui province and I witnessed some old guys making these rice cakes. I didn't get to see the whole process, but it involved cool cook wear and lots of oil, so I was pretty excited to actually be eating them.

And I was delighted when they poured shrimp in sweet and sour sauce over these rice cakes to make this particular bit of Shanghai cuisine. The rice cakes remained pretty crisp throughout the meal and the sweet and sour wasn't too overpowering. I just wish there were more shrimp.

脆皮豆腐 Sweet and Sour Tofu

Pinyin: Cuì Pí Dòu Fǔ

This dish could almost be mistaken for American Chinese food, except that it's made of tofu and not meat.

It's the classic sweet and sour style, it's just that it uses chunks of tofu that have been battered and fried. The tofu isn't overpowering and it's a refreshing change to find a dish so close to the American imitation.

Seems kind of funny actually that the USA would imitate something made in China. It's the 180 degree opposite almost all the other times.

芝麻牛肉 Fried Beef with Sesame Seeds

Pinyin: Zhī Ma Niú Ròu

Fried, battered, beef. Totally reminds me of chicken fingers but made of beef. They even gave us ketchup to dip them in which was totally weird. I've never been at a Chinese restaurant no matter how shoddy where they actually served us Chinese food with ketchup. I almost cracked up on the spot.

I'm not sure that this is a traditional sort of dish, I seriously doubt it in fact, but it is at least pretty American and if you are into fast food you'll undoubtedly have a taste for this.

The sesame seeds, BTW, are just hanging out there to break up the monotony of greasy brown fried batter.

酸辣白菜 Sour and Spicy Cabbage

Pinyin: Suān Là Bái Cài

A way way spicy version of a classic dish. This dish normally is a bit less red and has a bit fewer peppers.

But the fact of the matter is, nearly every take on this dish is good. It's so basic and as such is more or less a staple of home style Chinese food.

I've actually made this dish a few times so I'll attempt a recipe here:

Ingredients:

• 3-4 cups of cabbage cut into pieces
• 10-12 peppercorns
• 3-4 dried chili peppers
• 1-2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
  
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• pinch of julienned ginger
• salt

Steps:

1. Sprinkle salt over the cabbage and let it set for about ten minutes. It's important that the salt touches as much of the cabbage as possible, it's intended simple to extract some of the water from the cabbage.
2. Mix the rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, salt and cornstarch together in a small bowl with a bit of water.
3. Pour the excess water out of the cabbage
4. Put a few tablespoons of oil in a wok and set it over high heat.
5. Add the peppercorns and dried chili peppers to the hot oil and cook for about twenty seconds.
6. Add the cabbage to the hot wok and stir the cabbage in with the oil.
7. After several minutes and the cabbage is cooked, add the mixture in the bowl to the wok and continue to stir.
8. Remove from heat and place into a bowl for serving.

You'll notice right away that your mixture looks significantly less red and significantly more brown. That's the lack of chili sauce and the addition of soy sauce.

So give it a try and tell me what you think.

蒜泥百肉 Steamed Pork with Garlic

Pinyin: Suàn Ní Bái Ròu

Meat, my oh my what a tasty site. I have to be thankful for the little pleasures a dish like this brings to me in Shanghai. For you see, this meat is exquisitely flavored, it only has a small bit of fat attached, the garlic, peanuts and cilantro are balanced nicely, and the clincher for me is that this dish is completely bone free.

After so many meals spent chewing around, through and over bones it is refreshing to just simply eat a piece of meat with total disregard.

I highly recommend this dish, not just for the lack of bones, but because of the taste. Served as an appetizer it seemed to set the tone for the entire meal, which turned out to be tasty.

公鸡煲 Cock Pot

Pinyin: Gōng Jī Bǎo

Beer, the saving grace of this meal. It's a damn shame actually cause the chicken was so tasty. A little spicy and well marinated even though it I spent a good portion of the meal fishing through chicken bones.

Likealocal has an in depth review of one of these restaurants here.

After you get done eating the chicken, it more or less turns into a hot pot where you can add various vegetables, tofu, meats, etc. It's a good idea in theory except that the napalm keeping it warm just isn't capable of actual cooking.

Unfortunately all of the cooking happened so freakin slow that what should have been a twenty minute meal turned into an hour long meal, and instead of one beer turned into three, which honestly wasn't all that bad.

纸锅鱿鱼 Paper Pot Spicy Squid

Pinyin: Zhǐ Guō Yóu Yú

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning." If this is you, you'll get a kick out of this dish. From above it looks like an unassuming dish of food, but what you can't see is the plate of napalm sitting underneath it.

Almost every time I go for dinner at a decent to good restaurant in Shanghai I end up with fire on the table. It seems to be quite the norm that the primary dish on the table is being heated/cooked while it's on the table.

This one is some spicy squid in a paper pot (i.e. the white accordion looking thing). I believe it's a Hunan style dish, and frankly it's pretty damn good. I'm a huge fan of squid and octopus in all its forms.

On a side note though one time I was eating some squid I chomped down on a tiny tiny piece of the beak of the squid and crack goes my tooth. After several trips to the dentist, a lot of drilling, and a fair bit of pain, I now have a gold crown on that tooth!

蒜香骨 Garlic Fried Pork Ribs

Pinyin: Suàn Xiāng Gǔ

Who doesn't love ribs! Granted they aren't barbecued baby back ribs, but beggars can't be choosers. The way I see it, actually getting a full rib is a small miracle.

This is a tantalizing dish. Normally only chicken is deep fried. Deep fried ribs are a bit out of the ordinary, but what really makes these shine, and makes the grease dripping from them worthwhile is the fact that they must have been coated/marinated in garlic before being fried, and my oh my what a wonderfully garlicky delight.

松仁玉米 Corn with Pine Nuts

Pinyin: Sōng Rén Yù Mǐ

A lovely concoction of corn (with accessories, peas and carrots) and pine nuts. That's right pine nuts, they might rarely be eaten in the West, but in China where everything is fair to eat, pine nuts are fairly normal.

I'd have to say this could almost pass for a Western dish, and certainly it's a safe dish for almost everyone to eat. I will say though that eating corn with chopsticks is quite the challenge and even chopstick experts eventually revert to using the old fashioned soup spoon.

豆瓣菌菇炒虾仁 Broad Beans and Mushroom Stir Fry with Shrimmp

Pinyin: Dòu Bàn Jūn Gū Chǒu Xiā Rén

This dish goes along the lines of good concept, poor results. Everyone says it looks good. It seems good, it's got shrimp and mushrooms, just a few peppers to add spice.

But in the end I'd have to say it just falls down with those beans. See how damn big they are, nearly the size of my thumb, and when you bite into them it's like biting into a mushy old bean.

Get smaller beans and I'll be back to try this one again, but until then you can keep it all to yourself.

白椒炒鸡杂 White Pepper and Chicken Bits Stir Fry

Pinyin: Bái Jiāo Chǎo Jī Zá

Mmmm chicken bits. Hearts and livers and intestines and gizzards (I'm not even sure what gizzards are), mix them all up, add a few spices and peppers and you have a surprisingly good dish.

That's right it's good, not just a "not bad" kind of good but an honest to goodness order it again kind of good. I never really thought I'd find myself saying this, but chicken intestines and duck intestines are good. Can't say I care much for pork intestines, but if it's coming from a bird it' a different texture, certainly smaller, and has a better taste about it.

Oh remember I said they added peppers to this dish, yah well they are hot, damn hot. I was sweating while eating this dish. It was a paltry 35 degrees outside, but I doubt that had anything to do with it.

青椒豆腐干 Green Pepper and Tofu Stir Fry

Pinyin: Qīn Jiāo Dòu Fǔ Gān

I used to consider green peppers in the same category as brusssel sprouts, and that's the category of absolutely disgusting vegetables to be avoided at all costs, but lately I haven't been so repulsed by them.

For instance this dish is vegetarian seeing as how it's just got peppers and tofu, and I actually like it. It's got some spicy red peppers in there, but that's just for a little flavor it's not sweating spicy.

The particular tofu used in this dish is called dou fu gan (豆腐干). It's basically pressed and dried, or dried and pressed. This tofu isn't "mushy" like some people think of tofu and it's really quite useful in stir fry dishes and the like.

剁椒鱼头 Mashed Pepper Fish Head

Pinyin: Duò Jiāo Yú Tóu


The first time you see a dish like this it might be a little startling, it was for me, and then the next thing that races through your mind is "What in the hell we're gonna eat fish head, there isn't anything on a fish head worth eating".

But in actuality this dish is pretty damn good, and there's a surprising bit of meat on this particular fish head.

I don't know what kind of fish this is, something big obviously. The head has been slit down the middle starting at the top of the head going down to just the lower jaw and then spliced open and laid out. The peppers aren't spicy at all, they just add flavor and it's not the awful flavor from bell peppers either.

家常豆腐 Homestyle Tofu

Pinyin: Jiā Cháng Dòu Fǔ

Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of my favorite dishes. The way I see it, it has almost everything good mixed up together into one pretty damn fine dish.

First you've got your tofu, a kind of firm/fried tofu, then you've got chunks of pork, some mushrooms, and then it's all mixed up and cooked in a sweet and spicy kind of sauce.

It's not vegetarian, but it's got plenty of tofu. It'll keep carnivores satisfied cause it's got meat. It's spicy enough to keep things interesting, but sweet enough you won't break into a sweat. If you can't tell I love this dish and thankfully it can be ordered at nearly every Chinese restaurant worth it's weight in rice.

肥肠鱼 Spicy Fish and Intestines

Pinyin: Féi Cháng Yú

There's nothing better than intestines in the morning! Except of course intestines at night, oh my god, wait, wait, I've been in China too long cause that just can't be right.

So what do you get when you have pieces of bony fish, pig intestines, lots of hot peppers, and far too much oil. No it's not deep fried anything, instead it's spicy fish and intestines more or less boiled together with a nice thick layer of chili's and oil.

Ya so I'm harping on this pretty hard, but it's really out of love. I do like this dish, granted I sift through the intestines and just go for the fish, but really it is a damn good dish that certainly deserves a try or two or three. But do remember there are bones in that there fish so chew wisely, of course, you could always go for the boneless, skinless intestines.

苦瓜肉片 Stir Fried Bitter Melon and Pork

Pinyin: Kǔ Guā Ròu Piàn

Oh my this one is a real doozy. People either love it or hate it. I'm more of a hater, but coming around to the tolerating side of things. It's the damn bitter melon (the green stuff) that makes this dish just so.

Bitter melon looks like a cucumber gone wrinkled, but tastes like sucking on an aspirin. It is one of the most bitter things I've tasted and for the most part I can't stand it. According to Chinese traditional medicine the bitterness has a cooling effect on the body which is especially good during the summer, ironically that's precisely when this vegetable is in season.

While I may have a hate relationship with this vegetable, your Chinese friends will probably feel the same way, but entice you to eat it at least once. Like everything in life I recommend you try it at least once and choose to hate it all on your own.

什锦豆腐 Tofu Medley

Pinyin: Shí Jǐn Dòu Fǔ

Well I contemplated not blogging about this dish because it's not something I recommend. I've had decent versions of this dish, but this one isn't at all. It's got loads of MSG, is far too slimy even for me, and it's got no flavor to speak of.

If you are really interested in it, as you can see it's just tofu, carrots, and peas. Occasionally other things are added, say shrimp or bits of meat.

I guess if you are a fan of tofu give it a try, it's possible you'll like it, but don't get your hopes up. The name shen jing dou fu simply means that it's tofu with everything else, so it's usually composed of all the stuff that's just laying around in the fridge.