Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
You'll be able to find all of China's many regional
cuisines
(see
China's
regional cuisines
colour section) somewhere - Sichuan and Cantonese are peren-
nially popular. Japanese and Korean food is widely available and Thai and Indian
are growing increasingly accepted. If f you're looking for Western food, you've
come to the right Chinese city, with a great deal of restaurants catering for
expats; all the big internationals are here too. The Shanghainese are faddish and
food goes in and out of fashion like everything else; at the moment it's sandwich
bars, raw food and “destination” restaurants. Note that a lot of the best places
are chains, with several locations, many of them inside plazas and malls.
For the latest in dining - and bitchy user
reviews
of over-hyped restaurants -
check
www.smartshanghai.com. Note that you can even forego the whole
tiresome business of leaving your room altogether; for a small delivery fee,
Sherpa's (
W
www.sherpa.com.cn) will
deliver
from a host of
different restaurants around town. And finally, note that while street food is
generally okay - after all, it's cooked in front of you - you should try to avoid
drinking tap
water
, as it's full of heavy metals.
62096209,
T
W
Dining etiquette
Most places will have a
menu
in English, though it might be a handwritten scrap
of greasy paper - anyway, just about everywhere has picture menus these days.
Cold appetizers are served first, main courses arrive a few minutes later, then the
meal is finished off with soup and perhaps some fruit. Note that
rice
generally
arrives about halfway through the meal, and is eaten to fill you up rather than be
mixed with your dishes. If you want it brought earlier, you have to ask for it - say
mi fan
.
Tea
is free except at more upscale places; if you want your teapot refilled,
upend the lid. It's common at business banquets to drink
baijiu
, the pungent
Chinese booze that tastes like lighter fluid, in toasts, during which you are
expected to
gan bei
- swallow it all in one ghastly, throat-searing gulp. You won't
i
get away with saying that you just like a little in moderation, so it might be a
good idea on such occasions to pretend that you don't drink at all.
As for
table manners
- well, earthy peasant values are out of fashion, so don't
spit on the floor; apart from that, pretty much anything goes. It's impolite to
show your teeth, so if you want to use a toothpick, cover your mouth with the
other hand. Slurping your soup is normal, even rather polite. You don't have to
eat with chopsticks; all restaurants have knives (
daozi
) and forks (
chazi
). To fu
dishes are eaten with a spoon.
If you want the waitress's attention, call
fuwuyuan
, and if you want the
bill
ask
for the
maidan
. In restaurants, the Chinese don't usually share the bill, so don't
offer to pay your share, as the notion may cause embarrassment to your hosts.
Instead, diners contest for the honour of paying it, with the most respected
winning. You should make some effort to stake your claim but, as a visiting
guest, you can pretty much guarantee that you won't get to pay a jiao. If it makes
you uncomfortable, insist that next time dinner is on you.
Supermarkets
If you're self-catering, it's worth knowing about City Shop (daily 10am-10pm), which
sells Western and Chinese groceries, and has branches in the basement of Times
Square (93 Huaihai Zhong Lu) and on the first floor of the Shanghai Centre (1376
Nanjing Xi Lu), and Parkson Supermarket (daily 10am-10pm) in the basement at 918
Huaihai Lu.
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