South Beauty

South Beauty is a well-loved Sichuan restaurant in Shanghai. The food is spicy and delicious, and the atmosphere is always just right. There are branches all over the city, including Shanghai Times Square, Shanghai City Center, Citic Square, 881 Club, and Shi Mao International Plaza. I've been to the restaurants at Super Brand Mall in Pudong, and at Tao Jiang Road in Xu Hui (just off of Heng Shan Road). Both are nice, but the environment at Tao Jiang Road is really top-notch. The decor is something else, and the service is good. And the food is always of the best quality at South Beauty.






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Moon River Diner, Shanghai

The Moon River Diner has three branches in Shanghai, in Pudong, at Hong Mei Lu, and near Jing An Temple.

The menu has a really good assortment of American-style food. You'll find salads,hot dogs, a little Tex-Mex, burgers, soups, sandwiches, and plenty of ribs, chicken fried steak, and so on. The drinks are free flow (!), and they even have Dr. Pepper on the menu. That's a bit of a rarity in Shanghai (and it is not free flow, unlike the other drinks).

There is free internet access at the diner, which really appeals to many of the patrons there. Lots of people spend the afternoon working there, downing glass after glass of lemonade or fresh brewed ice tea.

The atmosphere is like a diner right out of America of several decades ago. It's a cozy feeling, good food, excellent drinks, and free internet access. It's a great place to spend an afternoon hard at work, or chatting with friends.


The Moon River Diner
3338 Hongmei Road
Shanghai
Phone: 6465-8879

68 Yuyao Lu,
The New Factories
Building #1 (near Xikang Lu)


Phone: 5213 5106
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Novel City

Novel City is another in a long line of good spots to eat and shop in Shanghai. It opened up late last year, and has lots of good restaurants and shops. My favorite eateries are Nian Nian Bu Wang and the Blue Frog. I wrote about another branch of The Blue Frog about a year ago, and this new one is not much different. Only the atmosphere tells the two places apart — one being in Shanghai's old-style buildings, while the other is in this new shopping center — but the service is equally good, and the menu is identical.

Nian Nian Bu Wang serves local food, and it is very nice. The hong sao rou was especially good, and very filling. I had a set meal for 30RMB, and it filled me up so much that I didn't have room for dinner that night. That's a pretty good deal.

There are plenty of other shops at Novel City, including groceries, clothing, and a bit of everything. It is on Tian Yao Qiao Lu, and makes for a good place to sit and have a nice meal, followed by a nice set of shops to walk through when you've finished eating.




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Lan Zhou Lamb Soup

Since I arrived in Shanghai for this extended stay (about 3 weeks so far, and 9 more to go), I have found myself almost addicted to Lan Zhou cooking. Lan Zhou is a province in Northwest China, north of Sichuan and west of Tibet. The food that I have tried at the various Lan Zhou stalls in Shanghai is really fantastic. I haven't been to Lan Zhou before, so I can't say that it is very authentic or anything. But it is really good, all the same.

My favorite dish has to be the lamb soup. It is especially appetizing on a cold day, because it not only warms you up at the time of eating, but seems to keep you warm the rest of the day. The soup has thin slices of mutton, sliced tomatoes, leafy green vegetables, glass noodles, and (my favorite) a sort of flat bread cut up into the soup. In some ways, it is a bit like tortilla soup, with its rich base and the thin bread there to soak it up. But in another way, it is its own thing all together, with the Lan Zhou herbs spicing it up.

It seems that I am not the only one who likes Lan Zhou lamb soup. The last 2 times I've tried to order it (at 2 different stalls), it was already sold out!


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Shi Wei Guan

Shi Wei Guan restaurant on Cao Xi Lu in Shanghai has lots to offer if you like to eat traditional Chinese dumplings. The "tang bao" at Shi Wei Guan is pretty special. Not only is it nearly as big as the plate it comes on, and not only do you have to lift the plate to your mouth in order to drink the soup from the dumpling, but the soup itself is also very special because it is made from crab rather than typical (rather oily) meat base. It is really a treat to taste the tang bao at Shi Wei Guan, with it paper-thin skin wrapped around the tasty crab soup.

Another menu item you won't want to miss there is the steamed king shrimp dumplings. These dumplings rank very high amongst guests to Shi Wei Guan — it certainly hit the mark with everyone at my table. The shrimp were very good, and the translucent white skin was just the right covering for their red, tender meat.

One very amusing item on the menu is the mixed bag of dumpling flavors. You can get all 5 flavors in one bamboo tray, and in that way get to try several different kinds. The assortment includes loofa dumplings, herbal dumplings, goose liver dumplings, crab dumplings, and the traditional Shanghai flavored dumpling. Each one is a different color, so it is easy to tell what you are eating. My favorite was, again, the crab dumpling.

One last not-to-miss item is the beef soup. It was really delicious, and worth trying. There are 10 items for which the restaurant is known (thus the name), and I didn't get to try them all. All of these items are on the "big 10" list, though, and were really good. If the rest are true to what I sampled here, then I think you can't miss if you choose from the 10 specialties.


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Folk Crock Soup Restaurant

Folk Crock Soup Restaurant.

No joke. That's the name of the place. And the food is much better than the English translation of the restaurant's name.

The branch at Shanghai's Tian Yao Qiao Road, on the 4th floor of "In Center," is nicely decorated and very comfortable. The tables by the windows are especially comfortable. On a weekday evening, it is not too difficult to get a table, but that might not be true on the weekend.

The food is really very good. It is home-style cooking. Soup, of course, is the specialty. You will find a wide selection of soups on the menu from which to choose. It could be a lot of fun to visit the restaurant over and over, trying a different type of soup each time.

I have to recommend the beef and taro dish. It is really good, and a little spicy (cooked with sliced red chili). It is quite filling, so take your appetite with you when you go!






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Xiao Long Bao: A Shanghai Specialty

Read Colin Fletcher's The Man Who Walked Through Time and join us for the book club discussion in mid-February

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A Taste of Shanghai

Making this video has made me homesick... and hungry.



(Most of the pictures here are from Wu Jiang Lu, an eating paradise. It is walking distance from People's Square, just off of West Nanjing Road.)


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What's that? Can we eat it?

Last month, I took my two nephews, ages 6 and 7, to Shanghai. Traveling with kids can be very different from the solo travels I am used to, and it can add a new dimension to the whole travel experience. It was so much fun to see Shanghai, a city that is like a second home to me, through their young eyes.

One of the things I really loved watching was seeing their attitudes toward food really open up. A year ago, when these boys first traveled overseas (to Singapore to visit me the first time), they were quite skeptical any time a dish they didn't recognize was placed before them. They would try it, but only under some degree of external compulsion. Over time, they found that trying new things was not so bad after all. In fact, they found many things that they really liked.

So, by the time we traveled together to Shanghai, the boys had really developed an adventurous spirit towards food. It got so that their first question, upon seeing something new was "What is that?" When they heard the answer, no matter what it was, the next question was always, "Can we try it?"

One day, we saw this on the menu:




"What's that?" they asked.

"Snake," I said, reading the menu.

"Can we try it?"

And so we did. And it quickly became old hat with them.

Traveling with that sense of eager anticipation of whatever is to come is really the way to go when heading overseas.


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The Blue Frog

I find myself in Shanghai again, this time with warmer weather. (Thank goodness!)

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to be invited to brunch at The Blue Frog on Mao Ming Lu. It is set right in the heart of an area that once was a hopping place for foreigners. My host, a French gentleman who has been living in Shanghai for 9 years and seems to know everyone and everyplace here, was quite nostalgic when speaking about the nightlife that used to circulate around Mao Ming Lu in the late 90s.

For now, though the scene has quietened just a bit, you will still find excellent eateries along Mao Ming Lu. At The Blue Frog, the menu for brunch was outstanding, and the prices were quite reasonable. My host and several of the other guests had the Eggs Benedict, and all pronounced them absolutely scrumptous. I went with the Greek Omelet, and equally enjoyed it. Others had the Santa Fe Roasted Chicken Sandwich and the Caesar's Salad. Both looked great, and all came with huge portions.

The atmosphere is wonderful, and was especially perfect in the sunny but breezy early afternoon hours yesterday. The prices are quite good when compared with the portions, about RMB 60 to RMB 85 for most of the set meals on the brunch menu. Certainly well worth the cost of the meal.



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Shanghai Dining and Nightlife

I have a hard time deciding what I like best in Shanghai when it comes to dining out. There is so much variety there that it really blows the mind. Each part of China has a different style of cooking, and you can find it all in Shanghai. And that is not even mentioning the international cuisine available there.

The city is also packed full of bars and clubs. There is a more active night life in Shanghai than what you will find in many Asian cities. Xin Tian Di is one of the more lively areas for after hours, and attracts a large amount of foreigners almost every night of the week. And, of course, it is really hopping on weekends.

Xin Tian Di is located near Huai Hai Lu, and it is situated in a series of old buildings, now restored and filled with upscale restaurants and bars. It is a very pleasant place to spend an evening. I especially love the logo I've seen advertising Xin Tian Di: "Where yesterday meets tomorrow in Shanghai today."




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How Way Restaurant

How Way Restaurant on Tian Yao Qiao Road in Shanghai has a wide selection of unique dishes. I enjoyed everything we ate there, and especially liked the mushrooms. My mouth is watering just thinking of them again.

The presentation of dishes at How Way is quite special. The fried potatoes come in what looks like a mountain atop a plate. They are crispy, and it is a rather huge portion. Other dishes come in bowls propped up on a stand with a small flame underneath, on plates arranged to look like goldbars, and in other unique arrangements. The set-up is really quite attractive, and the atmosphere is conducive for watching the dishes as they are brought in to the tables around you. In that way, it is a nice opportunity to see the full range of dishes served by How Way.

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