I’ve been eating extremely well in China, which isn’t difficult given that everything here is better than anything I’ve had in Canada times ten.
Let’s walk through a typical day of eating for me in Nanjing.
Breakfast starts at 5am and is usually at a xiao chi dian which is kind of like a dim sum stand with road-side aluminum furniture. Sketchy? Yes, a little. Delicious? Definitely. Luckily, I’m not someone with a sensitive stomach and I have never gotten sick from eating in China.
In the last four days, I’ve had quite a variety of breakfast items: plain steamed buns (man tou), veggie or pork-filling steamed buns (bao zi), glutinous rice buns (shao mai), fried dough sticks (you tiao), soy milk or tofu soup (dou jiang, dou nao), congee (xi fan).
Some xiao chi items can be repeated for lunch, such as steamed buns. Nanjing has the best xiao long bao in the country, many would argue.
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Skyland de Shanghai (上海新天地) across from Pacific Mall is my new favourite Shanghainese restaurant. The food here reminds me of Zhejiang (浙江) Province, the food of my childhood. Heck, it was the food of my parents’ childhoods. I had driven by this place many times and even heard it recommended to me, but for some reason, I never tried it. Dinner last night left me wondering, “Why didn’t I come here sooner?”
The interior is modern and well-lit. The tables are quite close together but the semi-circle dividers give an illusion of spaciousness.
The menu was varied with bright, bold pictures of mouthwatering dishes. We started with a “dessert” as an appetizer, gui hua tang ou (steamed lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice).
This steamed dessert was soft and sticky with sugary juices, and the sweet glutinous rice complemented the slightly crispier lotus root. I have always wondered what dessert in Chinese culture really is, but now I know why I had such a hard time figuring it out. For most families, there is no distinction between courses, everything is set on the table pretty much at once. Sure, you have bigger dishes and smaller dishes, hot dishes and cold dishes, but the distinction is not as clear as in Western tradition. For example, here is a dessert that looks deceptively like an appetizer. Who would have thought of lotus root being a dessert? It comes down to a fundamental difference in technology: Chinese chefs don’t bake. Baking is very much a Western technology, and Canton baked desserts have been influenced that way. Traditional Chinese desserts are made much in the same way that all dishes are made, on the stove.
Next up was ban li shao ji (chicken with chestnuts stew).
This was every good as bit as it looks. Braised chicken with chestnuts is a common family dish in the Shanghai area. It’s an exceedingly simple recipe – just soy bean paste and salt – but the chestnuts add something very subtle and unique to the sauce.
The highlight of the evening, however, was the Shanghai special hot pot.
In this pot contained an elaborate combination of: dan jiao (pork in egg wrapper dumplings), pork in tofu wrapper, Lion’s Head meatballs, fen si (vermicelli), fish balls, dried ham (salted and air-dried as opposed to smoked) and various Chinese vegetables. It was glorious.
Another unique dish was belly pork in a fermented beancurd sauce. Fermented beancurd (or dou fu ru) is not as strange as it might sound. It is not pungent at all, instead it is very flavourful.
Belly pork is pork that has a lot of fat, and it is usually cut in big chunks with the skin still on it. Although this is probably not a dieter’s dream, the skin, fat, and meat goes really well together, especially in a dish like this that would need to be cooked for a long time until a lot of fat has melted into the sauce.
On the side, we also had a bowl of bok choy fried rice.
For dessert, we had lan gua bing (fried pumpkin pancakes).
They are made with glutinous flour and covered in sesame seeds, fried until golden brown. These were melt-in-your-mouth good, the best I’ve ever had.
Service could have been more attentive but no worse than a typical Chinese restaurant of this size. The prices are very reasonable (although a little higher than some of the other restaurants in Scarborough). There are a lot of unique, home-grown Shanghai dishes on the menu that I have not seen elsewhere. I would definitely come back, and next time, I’m bringing more people so I can try more dishes.
Rating: 
