Shanghaied!!! FOOD!!! Yummy! - Part 3

Now I finally get to this post for my Shanghai trip. Arguably perhaps the most important one, that of food! Seriously, how can someone go to China and not talk about food? That would be a good trip wasted! Apologies...this post is late, I finally get my lazy butt to do this post. I guess blogging isn't one of my regular habits.

Ok...the food in Shanghai is...unique. Familiar and yet strangely alien. Mainly if I'm not wrong, the majority of Singapore's Chinese population hail from a different region (Fujian province? Southern coastal regions?), and are more familiar with the cuisine that we know and love in Singapore (which was probably brought over by our forefathers from China).

Anyway, the food in Shanghai tends to be saltier...and oilier. So it takes getting used to, its a weight watchers nightmare. But since I'm there for a holiday...that makes a good excuse to PIG OUT!!! There are some very unique food items in the regions that I visited. First, I'm sure people are familiar with Xiao Long Bao, which you can get at Crystal Jade. But the Xiao Long Bao in Shanghai is somewhat different. For starters, the Bao is actually very juicy and requires a certain technique to eat. Our tour guide warned us first-timers about eating Shanghai Xiao Long Bao. They recklessly bite into the Bao, resulting in the juice (or soup) being shot from the corner of your mouth into some poor soul's face (which would definately be argument/confrontation worthy by local Chinese standards). The correct technique is to bite a bit off the bao to make a small hole, you drink/suck the soup up first through the hole before you take a big bite and finish the rest of the Bao off.

Another interesting dish is Dong Po Rou (Dong Po Meat). Essentially its an exceptionally rich (fatty) slice of pork (what we locally know better as Kong Bak), marinated with herbs and spices. Again the tour guide warned us that the Dong Po Rou is not exactly health food, but they only served us one small slice...so might as well eat it anyway, fats and all. I have to say, it was probably the best slice of pork I have ever eaten! Yummy!

Now in Nanjing for some reason they have a fetish for duck. And one of their specialty duck dishes is salted duck, which is actually served cold. Obviously the duck tastes salty, and since its served cold the meat can be quite stiff, but my father said it was one of his favourite dishes on the trip, and I tend to agree though it needs getting used to. Its a unique taste different from the herbal and roasted duck we Singaporeans like.

Back to Bao's. Ever heard of "Tang Bao" (Soup Bao)? Its different from the previously mentioned Xiao Long Bao in that instead of meat inside the Bao what you get is soup! Thats right! Soup in a Bao! The Bao is made in such a way that theres a little hole at the top where you actually stick a straw in and sluuurp up the soup. Then you can dig out the rest of the Bao from the bamboo steamer-like container and eat the skin. Cute eh? The soup takes some getting used to as its quite saltish.

Almost every meal we had included a fish dish. Don't expect pomfret or sea bass or tilapia though. The fish they eat are fresh water fish and tend to have a slight muddy odour about them. That and they're extremely bony. Lots and lots of fine small bones which make them real tricky to eat. Its not likely that you'll choke on them, just that if one of them bones get stuck on your teeth then...ouch. They still taste good when properly cooked though, almost like any well cooked steamed fish you eat at the restaurants in Singapore (just don't expect Chilly Crab, they don't have that over there).

Almost every meal was accompanied with watermelons. Without fail...watermelons at the table signal that this is the last dish (which is ok cause the restaurants which my tour group ate in had several numerous dishes, so many it was intimidating). According to daddy, the Chinese farmers plant watermelons to make an extra buck while waiting in between rice planting seasons. You can always count on a Chinese mind to think of stuff to sell...and make money.

Every meal is also curiously accompanied by a bottle (or two because of the size of the table) of beer (a locally produced light beer, good for the ladies) and a 1 litre bottle of various western soft drinks (Sprite and Coke usually). In Nanjing they gave us a taste of the famous Tsingtao Rice Wine (I think thats what it was). I tell you that liquid is FIERCE! Its a very strong alcoholic drink. Drinking it down feels like drinking hot lava or something. One member of our tour group subsequently got a red face though he wasn't drunk. Really strong stuff that was.

Another thing I really ought to cover in China is tea. They brought us to a tea plantation in Hangzhou where we get to sample the supposedly famous Long Jing Cha (Dragon Well Tea). There are several variants of Long Jing Cha, the one we tried (supposedly the most authentic and best tasting) was Xihu Long Jing Cha (West Lake Dragon Well Tea), so named after Hangzhou's iconic Xihu lake (and a huge and very beautiful lake it was). Curiously enough they don't harvest the mature tea leaves, they go after the young shoots that contain the most flavour. Dry them out (which takes quite a bit of time) and fry them a bit with some oil, which mysteriously disappears as it gets absorbed and dissapated by the tea leaves. We got to taste a sample of some good quality Longjingcha. Now I do drink tea, though I'm not a tea fanatic, but you don't need a degree in tea making (which was apparently the qualification of the Manager who gave the sales talk) to know that the tea is really good. It tasted fresh, natural and very refreshing with a very rich aroma.

Some tips on making tea, or tea in general:

1. For heavens sake don't boil the tea leaves!!! You're killing off the vitamins and all those nice healthy tea leaf properties! If you want your tea hot, put it in warm water about 80 degrees C, no more than that.
2. The best way (apparently discovered by the Japanese) to make your tea is apparently to have it "cold". Just take a water bottle with room temperature water and sprinkle some of the tea in. Wait 20 minutes to 2 hours (for best results) and you'll have tea in your bottle. This method preserves all the nice vitamins and healthy properties of tea. My dad tried putting ice cubes and said it tastes even better and enhances the refreshing taste of the tea.
3. If the tea leaves get in your mouth while drinking go ahead and eat them. They're nice and crunchy. By the local custom, it is impolite to spit out the tea leaves anyway, so if you get the leaves in your mouth the proper thing to do is to eat them. For this reason, the locals don't "drink" tea, they "eat" tea (this is in their own local lingo).
4. You can eat the tea leaves by their own with no water. My mom describes them as being like eating Prawn Crackers (like Keropok). Its still a healthy treat so no worries.
5. If you get grade AAA tea (there are several grades, far too numerous to name, they only showed us AAA, AA, A and B grades, AAA supposedly being the best grade) like my parents who bought quite a bit (its quite ex though but my parent love tea, and I don't mind tea either), you grab a bunch of tea leaves with 3 fingers (from the thumb to the middle finger) and thats enough to make your tea, the tea leaves are that potent. Lower grades might require more.
6. Tea leaves (since they're dried) can last as long as 4 years! 6 if refrigerated! That is...if I remember correctly...

Moving on from tea. Another thing you might want to look out for is the local candy. You can get them from the local candy shops, which are easy to identify cause they're usually quite crowded, though they can be easily mistaken for a TCM outlet (they look almost identical with the displays of various exotic spices and herbal ingredients). They sell the candies really cheap, by the plastic-bag-full! The candies resemble Australian Nougat, in that they mostly consist of nuts, but they taste very different. You also get those sour plum and other preserved fruit treats in salty/sweet/sour variations.

I you're adventurous, you might want to try the local street food. You need to be careful though, some of the street food vendors are unhygienic. They fry their food from morning to night without changing the oil at all (meaning the oil turns from clear to a nasty black). Apparently a good proportion of illnesses (both minor and serious) in China are the result of of unhygienic food preparation, at least, according to what the tour guide told us. However, if you find yourself in a more upmarket area then you should be alright. The stalls look very much like the ones you find in Singapore, although the foods that they offer are vastly different. My parents tried this little treat called Xiao Huang Yu (Little Yellow Fish), which is kind of like a deep fried fish fillet. The bones are still there but its all been fried tender. Its nice and juicy (abeit quite oily) and at least you can taste the flavour of the fish. We also tried Chou Tofu (Smelly Tofu) which of course, smells nasty. The one we ate had a somewhat sickly greenish colour to the tofu but actually tasted quite nice (accompanied with a local variation of sweet chilly sauce). Essentially its fermented tofu, kinda like Stinky or Blue cheese in France. They're all in the acquired taste category. In terms of preference, I still think the Chou Tofu in Taiwan is the best.

There are other street food thats a bit too outlandish to try. They actually sell small fried birds on a stick. Imagine a whole fried bird (possibly a baby bird) slightly larger than your 3G handphone. Now imagine 3 of them stuck on a stick BBQ style. Yup you got the picture, kinda like chicken wings in Singapore except this time you eat the whole bird.

Woah...another long post! Well, China wouldn't be China without such diverse cuisine. I'd have to write a book just to detail all the culinary delights (and eccentricities) of the Shanghai region. For now, let me rest me aching hands...and all this talk of food is making me hungry... :-P