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:

Ingredients:
1 pound of beef (chunks, like for a stew)
2 tsp of salt
2 tbsp of madras curry powder
4 mini-potatoes or 2 small potatoes cut into chunks
1/4 white onion, cut into chunks
1 tomato, cut into chunks
1 red bell pepper cut into chunks
4 tsp of sugar
3 bay leaves

Steps:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the beef. Cover and let boil.
2. When the water boils again, dump the water out and rinse the beef (to get rid of the foamy stuff). Add water up to 1in above beef and let boil.
3. Add 1 tsp of salt, and cook on low for 30min.
4. Remove beef from pot and add to wok or pan (high power). Strain 3 cups of water from pot. Add 1 tsp of salt and all the curry powder, and mix well.
5. When the liquid in the pan starts bubbling, add onions, tomatoes, bay leaves, and sugar.
6. Wait 10min, then add the red bell peppers.
7. Cook on medium heat for 15min, or until tomatoes have basically melted.
8. Remove from wok and serve hot with rice.

Serves: 3

Alternatives:
This can be served with fragrant white rice or brown rice. I used the leftover “beef stew” liquid to cook brown rice, so the rice smelled and tasted amazing. If you have coconut milk, you can add half a can to the madras curry (in step 6), and half to white rice.

Notes:

• The tomatoes are meant to disappear, that’s why they are added early on. If you don’t like strains of tomato skin in your final product, you can use tomato sauce instead (1/2 cup should do it).
• Brown sugar is preferable to white granulated sugar, so you can substitute 3tsp of brown sugar if you have it.
• It’s important to cook the beef in the pot before cooking it in the wok. The cooking time in the wok is not long enough for stewing beef to become tender, and also you don’t want the foamy blood stuff to be cooked in.