Shanghai
Shanghai’s Swedish Chef at T8
For City Weekend, I had a great meal at Xintiandi restaurant T8, billed as one of the world’s top 50 by Conde Nast in 2003, which is now headed by Swedish Chef Roger Johnsson. We ended up chatting after the meal for quite awhile and talked about the food industry, crazy eats, Anthony Bourdain, and preparations of crayfish, among other things. He’s very likable without being over the top, and is turning out a menu of T8′s signature East-meets-West cooking with a strong Scandinavian slant. It’s the kind of food that rewards a bit of thinking and slow chewing to pick up on some of the witty touches, like a sprig of dill that hints at his culinary birthright.
When my coolly elegant waitress brought over this dish and pronounced it “lobster ravioli,” I wasn’t sure what to expect. It took the most bare concepts of ravioli – filling in between two flat pieces of pasta – and used that as a springboard into some other foodstuff altogether. The toasted nut salad on top served as a spicy entree into a refreshing offering below, which married the lobster filling with a crisp bed of green mango and jicama slaw. In between bites, I sampled the sweet rice wine froth piped on the edges. It’s a lot of flavors, but if you eat it patiently, you appreciate the highwire balance between each of the components: just enough of that, just the right sweetness of this, all anchored with a cool crunch at the bottom.
Cured salmon roulade stuffed with goat cheese, sweet corn soup on the side. Those are spicy cornflakes dotting the surface of the soup!
Seafood lasagna, prawn-lobster, salmon-abalone, ginger okra, saffron sauce
Bacon wrapped scallops and crispy prawn, green curry braised leeks, purple potato pancake, orange beurre blanc. I’ve had quite a few bacon wrapped scallops in my day, and while this is a dish that is always delicious on principle (as literally anything involving fresh bacon is), I loved the golden sear on the scallop – too bad I was pretty full by this point already.
And a lighter note to end on: Peach Martini – white peach sorbet, raspberry cream, candied popcorn.
Incredible skill and agility: making breakfast crepes in Shanghai
The first time I saw this in person, I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. So I took a video.
The inside is flaky and savory, like so:
Jian Bing in all its pornographic glory.
A Boston Epicure’s Photo Dispatch from Shanghai, China
This is where I live.
Hello, Internet. Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been getting acclimated to my (sweaty) surroundings here, where the humidity soars to 80-90% and the temperatures have been nearly hitting the triple digit mark in recent days. I only recently figured out AC, and this has meant that I’ve spent a lot of time waking up with my long head of hair soaked in sweat.
I have many more interesting conversations and experiences which I should really write down (conversations with taxicab drivers, mostly) but here’s some food I’ve been eating. There’s a lot more where this came from – check back tomorrow for more!
A better quality photograph of those strange little crayfish creatures - look for a GoodEater.org blog post soon!
One of my new Chinese friends who cooks at the restaurant which serves the crayfish above. He's from Henan, along with the rest of the staff. Here, he's holding a steamed Chinese bread called "mantou." We're about to eat our tasty dinner of stewed lamb bone soup, see below.
A soup made from boiled leftover lamb bones for many hours, combined with tofu and some other vegetables. This was the dinner that the employees of the small restaurant ate. I mix it with some extra chili and soak up the excess with mantou.
A Chinese table after a meal, littered with liquid and bony debris.
They serve fantastic mutton kebabs - smoky and crackling with fat.
A fish that has "squirrel" in the dishname because of the hatchback pattern the body is cut in, then deep fried. It was covered in a ketchupy sauce and sprinkled in pine nuts. Not very fresh and pretty underwhelming, but fun to look at.
The owner (center) was hilarious. He also had me serve as a translator for some Americans that came in who wanted to eat pork fried rice and fried pork ribs. I tried to steer them away from that option (because I had it, and it sucked) but hey, if you're determined...
I ordered a duck's head, and this is what arrived.
... and this is what was on the inside. I ate the brain (waxy) and kind of gave up on the rest. Not much meat here.
I can't ever get enough of chili-laced oil.
Lay's puts out interesting potato chip flavors here like "cucumber" "italian red meat" "mexican tomato chicken" and yes, "lychee." Which is a sweet Chinese fruit. It is basically a potato chip with this sweet aroma that wafts off of it. The plain flavor is called "American flavor."
The price of being cultured
I think my father is convinced I will be robbed blind once I land in Shanghai due to extreme poor planning and naivete. Well, here’s the rundown of my preparation thus far:
- 3 painful immunizations, $108, termbilled to parents
- malaria meds, in case i travel through rural China: $30
- hotel booking (and subsequent rescheduling because I misread my itinerary, typical), $68
- 4am taxi ride, anticipated $45
- stupidly lost ID, charlie card, keys, almost full BerryLine card, valued at $55
- two months rent on sublet, Y3600 (approx. $600)
- gut busting breakfast at Harvard Square diner Leo’s Place, $7.95
- other anticipated expenses, $1500, or until I run out of cash
- GYM MEMBERSHIP???
- amount of money earned doing temp barbacking: a lot more than standing around should merit
- getting free bull testicles from KO Prime predeparture: priceless. The video is coming soon.