More Shanghai Food - Last One!

More food adventures in China: The Inventive Shanghai Soup Dumpling

Unfortunately I did not write down the name of this restaurant, which was located in the outskirts of Shanghai but wanted to feature a few photos.  It was a local restaurant in a middle class neighborhood.

I really liked this vegetable dish - really great for vegetarians!  I plan to make it sometime because it was so simply prepared but so good in flavor and healthy.

The dish contains some type of Chinese vegetable, but like spinach (I plan to substitute with spinach since that is easily available to me in the US).  There are scrambled eggs and a sea mushroom, well in Chinese, it is called moo-er.  It comes dried in Chinese grocery stores and one thing to note that eating a lot of this thins blood.  So, certain people actually need to make sure they don't consume too much dependent on their blood situation.  We ended up ordering this twice because it was so good - when we returned to the restaurant.

 

This dish was a favorite of mine.  It had squid, green beans, potatoes, and an interesting garlic stalk.  The garlic stalk was crispy and mild in flavor.  I hope to grow these because I have never seen them in the grocery store! (I heard you just bury the garlic head, will need to verify)

And, lastly, a fried fish and potatoes dish.  Not healthy, but it looks nice, so thought I would add it.

Yang's Fried-Dumpling Restaurant Review

Check out previous posts for more food adventures in China: The Inventive Shanghai Soup Dumpling.

While I was trying to maximize my intake of soup dumplings, I went to a place called Yang's Fried Dumpling on recommendation from a friend.  This place was so good, that our group went back another 2 times after our first visit.  I think my photo taken was during our second trip since I (and my brother) could not get enough of it.

 
This dumpling is pork filled, and is pan fried with sesame seeds on top.  So tasty, so flavorful, so cheap.  Crispy on the bottom, soft on top, juicy on the inside.  Since it is not fried, it doesn't dry out your mouth.  It is a perfect combination of crispy and moist.  The place turns really fast and when people were done eating, we had to swoop in to take their seats.  If you don't, you will be left to eat, standing.

We also ordered a curry soup.  It was alright.  I liked the buns too much so didn't give too much attention to the soup...but if I were to have the soup on its own, it would have been a pretty good one.  I think there was too much competition at that meal.

Although Chinese cooking does use refined flours (as you have seen from my posts), many dishes are relatively light and balanced with different meats and vegetables.  The refined flours (aside from a huge bowl of noodles) are usually not too heavy, but it also depends on your desired consumption levels.  The meals at Yang's were not really balanced as you can see.

However, in total, we found it quite easy to order stir-fried vegetables everywhere we went.  The Chinese consume more vegetables on average than the typical American.  Chinese also consume much less meat.  I think it is still considered and priced as an expensive food.  And, if you add in all the walking people do around there, it is easy to burn off all the calories from your previous meals.  

Nanxiang Steamed Buns Restaurant Review

As I said in my previous post The Inventive Shanghai Soup Dumpling, the next few posts are about my food adventures through China and Taiwan.  We are still at Nanxiang Steamed Buns Restaurant in Shanghai, China.  This meal, you might say, was "epic" since we waited in all the wrong lines and ended up spending a pretty penny for all the delectable dishes, and left stuffed to the rim.

The review: a repeat buy, over and over again.  This place was really good, and the winding lines show it.

Photos with some commentary.

 This was a really well made BBQ pork bun.

This shrimp toast was out of this world!  I don't eat much fried food, as you know, but this was doubly amazing because they were shrimp balls with soup inside!!  These people know how to give little surprises in delicious ways.

You will see the glistening soup inside!  One of my favorites.  Flavors of toast vs. shrimp so balanced, salt and fried just right.

This is a soup that was very light.  Lots of deep flavor but the broth was cooked so clean, as you can see the bok choy pretty clearly!

These dumplings are stuffed with glutinous rice and meat filling.

The Inventive Shanghai Soup Dumpling

My blog is usually about finding healthy food, but given that I downloaded my pictures from the trip to China and Taiwan, I want to take a few posts to display some of the very traditional and very delicious food we ate on the trip.  First stop: Nanxiang Steamed Buns Restaurant in Shanghai, China.

One of my favorites is the Shanghai soup dumplings.  This restaurant is in the Yu Gardens and is famous for Xiaolongbao (小笼包), or referred to as Shanghai soup dumplings.  This restaurant is famous with locals and tourists.  The lines were winding around the restaurant, inside and out, no exaggeration.

Shanghai soup dumplings have a very thin wrapper skin with filling and broth inside.  It's a pretty ingenious invention.  Usual fillings are pork, crab/pork, vegetable, and other seafood combinations.  The little orange pepper indicated that my shark fin/crab/pork dumpling was on the right of it.  The shark fin soup dumpling is usually the most expensive and to be savored.

I also should add, we went all out for this meal, so that basket below was a personal basket.  All mine!

When you eat the Shanghai soup dumpling, you usually use a soup spoon, put the dumpling on the spoon, add the vinegar/ginger condiment, and then bite a hole at the top of the dumpling to let the steam out.  The broth inside can be really hot.  After you blow and it cools, eat while sucking.  A trick that takes a few times to get used to.

Here you find a MASSIVE soup dumping.  Note the little caution hot! sticker. haha.  And that broth is H-O-T.  I burned my tongue even after I waited almost 10 minutes to consume.  We had so much food (more to come in my next post), so although it was so well made, I don't think I really enjoyed it as I could have.  Need a repeat!

Fake Egg Alarm?!

Many of you know of my love for eggs from my previous posts, and that I find Not Every Egg is Laid Equal.  But here in this post, you will find that some eggs are MADE very unequally, in a very literal (and enraging) sense.  At lunch today, one friend (thanks Jeanie!) brought up an incredibly disturbing, vile piece of news that in certain parts of China, there are people who man-make eggs!  They use a concoction of gelatin and chemicals to form the yolk, the white and it hardens to a shell.  And they say that it was because the materials were cheaper than actually raising a chicken to lay the egg.  The poor Chinese consumers who buy them and actually use them without knowing that they are about to consume a botch of harmful chemicals.  Simply outrageous. 
 
This video was from a few years ago, so I hope that things have changed, but be forewarned, especially when you are visiting China, that this is a possibility.  Of course, not every egg from China is fake, but better to be on the lookout for any suspicious egg formations.   

They say that a couple of ways to detect whether an egg is fake is to see whether the egg white is runny like water and whether there is a membrane layer beneath the egg shell.  The fake ones do not have the membrane layer beneath the shell. 

Investigation of fake eggs in China. by FujiTV, from YouTube

Food Encounters in Asia

It's been awhile since my last post!  I have been traveling a bunch and am now suffering from major jetlag, as I have started to compose this post at 4:41am.  I just returned from a trip to China and Taiwan.  Some amazing sights and sounds on that other side of the world.  The food, as with my other Asia trips, was an amazing experience.

A few food findings on my voyage through China and Taiwan:

1) Asian portions are much smaller than American portions.  In Hong Kong, we went to a restaurant called Dan Ryan (named and served after my beloved Chicago).  On the menu, there was a citing that said, "Warning! We serve American portions here!"  Hilarious!  Lo and behold, when that hamburger came out, it was rightfully portioned for the typical American.  It looked like a pound and a half of meat.  However, even with the restaurant's conscious decision of serving American sizes, the fries and slaw were only half of typical portions seen at American burger joints.  Conclusion?  If you are a picky American eater, that is mainly stick to the familiar like meat and potatoes ("new" is not in your gastronomical vocabulary), and want to lose some weight, try taking a trip to China.  Few familiar choices will be just what you need to melt off a few pounds!  And, for those who eat for adventure or love Chinese food, welcome to yummy galore!

2) Not a whole lot of meat.  Meat is somewhat sparse, except in all the amazing dumplings I consumed, which in that case was complemented by the pan-fried or steamed dough, oh, I am drooling right now.  Perhaps meat is still a delicacy given all the mouths to feed in China and Taiwan, leaving hunger to be curbed by noodles, dough and rice.  I find that particularly in Shanghai, rice must be asked for and is even sometimes forgotten by servers even though we ordered it.  One huge added benefit to eating in Asia is that people actually order vegetables (not lettuce), like a whole plate of stir-fried vegetables.  However, I have been to Asia with vegetarians and it is not easy to find them food.  Although vegetables are available and more abundant than in the US, most dishes of substance contain meat or fish/seafood (tofu is not seen as a meat substitute, and was never intended to in Chinese cooking!).

3) Self-control is absolutely necessary in Taiwan bakeries.  We were hungry when we first arrived, and started to walk through one of the suburbs in Taiwan foraging for food.  We came across a bakery called How Sweet.  We nearly bought every item in that place.  Certainly, I cannot vouch for the oil and dairy that they use in their baked goods there (I am a bit skeptical on their ingredients, actually), but boy, baked doughy, buttery bread with pork shreds on top took the cake home for me.  I am still a solid believer in healthy eating, but boy, God has given some people talent in making bakery deliciousness that melts in your mouth.  Not for the everyday, or even weekly consumption, but every once in awhile, especially if Taiwan is on your itinerary, save your calories for those Taiwan bakeries!

Don't have access to my travel photos on this computer, when I do get access, I will post a few pictures.

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year to you!  This is a time when the Chinese, especially for all of China, takes a long break and spends the holiday with family and friends.  It's usually a two week holiday, which goes to show you that this is no small celebration.  The Chinese love to eat, and this is the holiday in which you bring out all the stops.  You serve chicken, duck, fish and pork among the other delicacies including noodles!  These foods all symbolize something, or at least someone way back when made it more meaningful (and easy to remember) by putting together the associations.  That was kind of smart...

If you can remember them.

The ones that I know of (and the American sites I looked at all have different explanations; I should have asked a Chinese friend from China, but alas, he/she is not sitting here) are that the fish symbolizes prosperity, because the old Chinese saying directly reflects it (Mandarin: nian nian yoh yuhr).  And, you serve the fish whole.  Usually the most senior person gets to eat the head.  So, if you find yourself dining with a Chinese family, don't snag the head until the most senior person (and all those more senior than you) has indicated he/she would be better without it. 

The other is noodles.  Long noodles symbolize longevity.  We typically make super long noodles and eat in a delicious broth.  Our noodles are homemade, and I know that I have done a good job when they are super gummy.  Yum!

Whether you are celebrating or not, it's a fun time to go to your Chinatown and check out any festivities that might be going on.  People are typically very *happy* around this time!

Get to the Source

The lesson learned is to be curious about what is in your food, where it came from, how it was grown or raised, and ask whether your source is reputable and trustworthy.

Not the first time that anyone has heard about food contamination, but there was an article today about the high levels of contamination in imported seafood from precarious places including Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia.  In certain cases 40-50% of seafood testing comes out positive for drugs like chloramphenicol, nitrofurans and malachite green,which are banned from all food (I can't even pronounce them!).  Seafood with the worst records of contamination: shrimp, catfish, crabmeat and tilapia.

I believe this goes back to the whole problem of fish/seafood farming.  Yes, the demand for these foods have dramatically increased, there is high risk of overfishing the wild, but to farm them in sewage water or even the same water of the wild that shows ecosystem imbalance should not persist.  The result time and time again is sick fish.  Antibiotics is not an answer; the detrimental impact of drugs, antibiotics, hormone injections on humans defeats the purpose of food.  Food is suppose to build your body up, not get more sick as a result.

And, by the way, I met three people over the weekend who don't know each other, and all of them had food poisoning of some sort.  And, one was from calamari in Iowa. 
 

Here's the article: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40198123