A Glimmer of Good Things to Come

Up to and including the aforementioned breakfast buffet, I had not been overwhelmed with Shanghai’s culinary offerings.  Visions of fish scented pork and dan dan noodles with minced beef swam around in my head, whetted my appetite and set me up for disappointment.

True, I had only eaten at my dingy hotel’s restaurant, but I wasn’t going to discriminate.  Despite its shortcomings, it was clean, if well worn, and I had no fears of unsanitary or unseemly activities in the kitchen.  My only meal experience there, however, was unfortunate.  Suffice it to say that pointing at pictures on a laminated Chinese-only menu is rarely a good idea, and never so immediately following a 14-hour flight.

Lunch today, however, was exactly what I was waiting for.  I joined a small group from the design and production staff at a restaurant near the office.  From the bustling sidewalk there was nothing memorable about it and you’d likely walk by without noticing it at all if you weren’t with people who knew better.  This group takes lunch seriously and, lucky for me, they knew better.

Ten or so dishes were ordered and arranged family style around the table.  Pork strips with sizzling hot dried chili peppers, rice noodles with fiery-red sauce, flaky bone-in fish in a milky-white broth, a flattened and shellacked egg pancake with red beans and mushrooms, seasoned and fried peanuts, a steamed pork belly and rice loaf, chilled and marinated whole shrimp, a stew of beef and potato, broccoli, white rice and bok choy with shiitake mushrooms were brought one or two at a time from the kitchen.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had Chinese food in New York in the last ten years.  The look-alike, heavy, too sweet, too salty and oily dishes with sound-alike names and dubious derivation were pulled from my dinner lineup the minute I got a real kitchen of my own.

The hearty flavors here, and the variety of aromas, colors and ingredients, however, were a revelation.  Unlike the restaurants I’d given up on in New York, this one seemed to find ways to make each ingredient stand out.  Rather than smothering with heavy sauces or ham-fisting with starch and oil, they coaxed and cajoled and re-introduced me to what I thought I knew, in a way I had never experienced before.

In the Chinese style, the dishes were shared, each person using their chopsticks to help themselves to one bite-sized serving at a time.  As the plates emptied out and tea was poured and passed, the discussion topics narrowed to a focus on dinner.  The merits of various restaurants were debated and recommendations were made.

This, I thought, was a display of priorities in proper order.  Meal planning was to be taken seriously – very promising indeed.

© Markus Horak, 2009.