Yang
On Food
I had thought that, upon first seeing Shanghai, I would be speechless. Luckily for you, this was not the case. I have so many things I would like to talk about, the words are jostling each other on their way out, much like an oxymoronic Chinese queue. So let’s start with my favourite topic: food.
Chinese cuisine is one of the great cuisines of the world and I am salivating at every corner with the dizzying variety of what is on offer. The majority is of course Northeastern cuisine, but we’ve had Hunan, Szechuan and and Western Chinese Muslim food (I forget the name of the province). The latter may have been our most adventurous culinary excursion so far, inasmuch as the menu consisted entirely of pictures with Chinese captions, without English translations. We were in the small water town of Zhujiajiao, a very picturesque village west of Shanghai. There is a postcard view around every corner and every house backs onto a canal, with front pedestrian access through narrow lanes. So naturally every dwelling now either sells tacky knick knacks or is a tea house. The same fate has befallen what is left of Shanghai’s Old Town and, to be fair, most other similar spots in the world. After being, say, in Cozumel on cruise ship day, one might be forgiven for thinking that all the colourful crap in the world has washed ashore in Mexico. But take heart, there is colourful crap everywhere. The palette here is different, that’s all.
But let us go back to the ostensible excuse for this posting: food. I will start with the Muslim food, because the episode illuminates much of what it is like to be here. We spotted the restaurant from a distance; it happened to be in a hotel. As it turns out, we were the only ones wanting to eat. No problem: we were whisked into a private dining room where two large tables for 12 or so were set. They pulled the serving table from the wall, a couple of chairs and covers from the other tables and voila! A private dinner. The hospitality did not extend to turning on the heat, which is not very surprising: we have had to eat a majority of our meals with our jackets on, much like everyone else. Then came the English-less menu. This is less of a problem than one might think. I mean no disrespect to all the Chinese translators who work hard at their art, and my Mandarin will always have to lick their English’s boots, but the translations are not always as edifying as one might hope. They range from the disgusting (mixed bacteria soup), to the unappetizing (sautéed gristles), to the uninformative (griddle QQ fans) to the puzzling (chicken cooked with fewer taste) to the hopefully metaphorical (fried pupa). Unsurprisingly, pictures are greatly welcome, although captions can still be life-saving: pig intestines do not look unmistakeably unlike sliced pork. We batted 1.000 on the Muslim food and are pretty much at 80% overall, although we have not been very adventurous yet.
There are essentially five classes of eateries. The posh places, with big doors, doormen, often situated in a western hotel we do not frequent. The middle-of-the road places is where we go all the time: great food, clean and affordable. The service is not white-glove but it is not bad either: just indifferent, for the most part. Then come the little sit-down restaurants, usually four or five tables in a cramped room a few steps down from street-level. This is where you go for local colour, hoping that someone else is eating something you want so you can point at it. Local colour is all very good, but I am not interested in the local colour of my vomit, so I will probably honour these places by my absence. Next come the hole-in-the wall take-out eatery, usually comprising, but not necessarily limited to: steamed buns, dumplings, onion cakes and grilled meat on a stick. We’ve had our first steamed bun from one of those today and we are still standing. At the very bottom of the heap is street food: literally cooked in the street. We probably will not partake.
In addition to cooked food, you can buy a vertiginous variety of “other stuff”. It is impossible to guess what any of it is. Most of it seems dehydrated and again, unrecognizable. I would try it if I had an inkling of what it was, and how to order it: I don’t want to be left the proud owner of a half kilo of caterpillar dandruff.
Lagniappe
Who is in charge of transliteration from Chinese anyway? Feng shui pronounced “fung shway”. What is the sense in that? Compare: my name is Pierre, pronounced “kapok”. No one would have any truck with that. What about plain fung shway? Or, if we must use additional words, what about: “the nonsense formerly known as feng shui”?
On Food
I had thought that, upon first seeing Shanghai, I would be speechless. Luckily for you, this was not the case. I have so many things I would like to talk about, the words are jostling each other on their way out, much like an oxymoronic Chinese queue. So let’s start with my favourite topic: food.
Chinese cuisine is one of the great cuisines of the world and I am salivating at every corner with the dizzying variety of what is on offer. The majority is of course Northeastern cuisine, but we’ve had Hunan, Szechuan and and Western Chinese Muslim food (I forget the name of the province). The latter may have been our most adventurous culinary excursion so far, inasmuch as the menu consisted entirely of pictures with Chinese captions, without English translations. We were in the small water town of Zhujiajiao, a very picturesque village west of Shanghai. There is a postcard view around every corner and every house backs onto a canal, with front pedestrian access through narrow lanes. So naturally every dwelling now either sells tacky knick knacks or is a tea house. The same fate has befallen what is left of Shanghai’s Old Town and, to be fair, most other similar spots in the world. After being, say, in Cozumel on cruise ship day, one might be forgiven for thinking that all the colourful crap in the world has washed ashore in Mexico. But take heart, there is colourful crap everywhere. The palette here is different, that’s all.
But let us go back to the ostensible excuse for this posting: food. I will start with the Muslim food, because the episode illuminates much of what it is like to be here. We spotted the restaurant from a distance; it happened to be in a hotel. As it turns out, we were the only ones wanting to eat. No problem: we were whisked into a private dining room where two large tables for 12 or so were set. They pulled the serving table from the wall, a couple of chairs and covers from the other tables and voila! A private dinner. The hospitality did not extend to turning on the heat, which is not very surprising: we have had to eat a majority of our meals with our jackets on, much like everyone else. Then came the English-less menu. This is less of a problem than one might think. I mean no disrespect to all the Chinese translators who work hard at their art, and my Mandarin will always have to lick their English’s boots, but the translations are not always as edifying as one might hope. They range from the disgusting (mixed bacteria soup), to the unappetizing (sautéed gristles), to the uninformative (griddle QQ fans) to the puzzling (chicken cooked with fewer taste) to the hopefully metaphorical (fried pupa). Unsurprisingly, pictures are greatly welcome, although captions can still be life-saving: pig intestines do not look unmistakeably unlike sliced pork. We batted 1.000 on the Muslim food and are pretty much at 80% overall, although we have not been very adventurous yet.
There are essentially five classes of eateries. The posh places, with big doors, doormen, often situated in a western hotel we do not frequent. The middle-of-the road places is where we go all the time: great food, clean and affordable. The service is not white-glove but it is not bad either: just indifferent, for the most part. Then come the little sit-down restaurants, usually four or five tables in a cramped room a few steps down from street-level. This is where you go for local colour, hoping that someone else is eating something you want so you can point at it. Local colour is all very good, but I am not interested in the local colour of my vomit, so I will probably honour these places by my absence. Next come the hole-in-the wall take-out eatery, usually comprising, but not necessarily limited to: steamed buns, dumplings, onion cakes and grilled meat on a stick. We’ve had our first steamed bun from one of those today and we are still standing. At the very bottom of the heap is street food: literally cooked in the street. We probably will not partake.
In addition to cooked food, you can buy a vertiginous variety of “other stuff”. It is impossible to guess what any of it is. Most of it seems dehydrated and again, unrecognizable. I would try it if I had an inkling of what it was, and how to order it: I don’t want to be left the proud owner of a half kilo of caterpillar dandruff.
Lagniappe
Who is in charge of transliteration from Chinese anyway? Feng shui pronounced “fung shway”. What is the sense in that? Compare: my name is Pierre, pronounced “kapok”. No one would have any truck with that. What about plain fung shway? Or, if we must use additional words, what about: “the nonsense formerly known as feng shui”?