马桥香干吊锅 Spicy Smoked Tofu

Pinyin: mǎ qiáo xiāng gān diào guō


I've raved and raved about tofu before, so it should be obvious that I dig it. I know lots of people say they don't like tofu but seriously there are hundreds of kinds of tofu out there, something for everyone so to speak.

The smoked tofu in this dish has a unique flavor, earthy and wooden, it reminds me of a deep dark dank forest which is a pretty unique flavor. A fair number of spicy peppers were added that give it a bit of bite, and like all good Chinese dishes a fair variety of vegetables and a few mushrooms were added for good measure.

I believe this is a Hunan style dish and is common throughout those Chinese restaurants here in Shanghai. Smoked tofu can be found in a number of dishes, again primarily coming from Hunan province or nearby areas. It's a unique flavor and might not be for everyone, but it's different and worth trying at least once.

香辣八爪鱼 Sweet and Spicy Octopus

Pinyin: xiāng là bā zhuǎ yú


I love octopus and this was a surprisingly great dish. It was sweet but not startling sweet like your average sweet and sour dish, and it wasn't sour it was spicy and balanced nicely against the sweetness.

The chef added sauteed onions which I always love and add great flavor. Also added were mushrooms of varying varieties that are another one of my favorites. Me and my dining partner were both sort of surprised that the octopus in the dish were absolutley huge and you can see that in the picture here to some extent. Normally baby octopus are used and generally fit in your mouth in just a single bite, not the case here each piece was several bites.

As a fan of octopus I had to give this dish a try and I wasn't disappointed. The flavours were unique and fit my palate quite well. I think most people would like this dish once they get past the slightly odd sight of seeing tentacles in their food, which if you've been in China for any amount of time shouldn't be too hard.

烟笋腊肉 Spicy Smoked Pork

Pinyin: yān sǔn là ròu

This spicy smoked pork is to die for. It reminds me a lot of dried beef (it is in fact basically dried pork), it's salty and has a nice cured meat flavor to it. I'm sure it's incredibly unhealthy for you, but hey you only live once right?

The dish is composed of slices of this smoked pork, a rather strange kind of dried mushroom and of course peppers that give it that added kick. The pieces of pork are really half meat and half fat, the fat is what adds the most excellent flavors to the dish and if you want to be healthy it's easy enough to avoid eating.

This style dish/meat is quite often served at Hunan style restaurants. There are many dishes available that use the 腊肉 and you really should try it. Again probably isn't the healthiest, but if you like smoked fish, or beef jerky and can stomach spicy things this is the dish for you.

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.

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.

海蜒花生米 Peanuts with Spicy Anchovy Oil

Pinyin: hǎi yán huā shēng mǐ

Peanuts a simple food, yet add some spicy oil and a dash of dried fish and you've created a rather tasty Chinese appetizer. The spicy oil added most of the flavor and I'd swear they mixed in a fair bit of white pepper that really livened up the first dish on the table. The peanuts were roasted till they were crunchier than normal which I've become a fond of. As with any dish involving lots of peanuts it always goes better with beer and I think that is doubly true for this one since you'll want something to quench that burning sensation tingling your mouth alive.

湖南香干 Special Hunan Tofu

Pinyin： hú nán xiāng gān

Chances are you'll only find this at a Hunan food restaurant obviously enough, though it is very similar to 家常豆腐 Homestyle Tofu, which I previously talked about. In the Hunan style though this dish is focused more on being spicy and less on variety of ingredients.

You can see that it is quite simply pieces of tofu, peppers, scallions and you can't see that they've also added pieces of pork fat for flavor. The tofu used as the primary ingredient is quite unique in flavor. It really reminds me of fermented tofu. It has some earthy undertones about it that lead me to believe it isn't fresh. It also has a slightly tough and chewy skin that appears as though it was fried. It adds nicely to the texture but at the same time the tofu isn't oily.

The spiciness from the peppers isn't overpowering, they provide just enough strength to tingle your sense but not enough to have you reaching for a cold drink. Together with the peppers and the fat from the pork this tofu comes alive and I've been regularly ordering it for the past several weeks.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.