Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Street food
Shanghai cuisine
Shanghai cuisine is sweet, light and oily. Much of the cooking involves adding ginger,
sugar and sweet rice wine, but spice is used sparingly. Dishes are generally served in
small portions; this might cause derision in other parts of China but it's very handy for
visitors who want to sample a good variety of dishes.
Fish and shrimp are considered basic to any respectable
meal, not surprising perhaps bearing in mind the city's
proximity to the sea; eel and crab may appear too. Fish and
seafood are often lightly cooked (steamed mandarin fish is
especially good), or even served raw; “
drunken shrimps
”, for
instance, simply comprises live shrimps drowning in wine.
Meat dishes are well represented too.
Sweet and sour
spare ribs
are given a zesty tang by the heavy sauce; you
might be shocked to discover how much sugar goes into it.
One unmissable local treat is
beggars' chicken
, in which the whole bird is wrapped
in lotus leaves, sealed with clay and oven-cooked. Like many popular dishes, there's a
For Chinese and
pinyin translation
of the dishes
covered here, and
many others, see
pp.194-201 of the
Language section.
Hairy crabs
Between October and December look out for
the local speciality hairy crabs (mitten crabs in
the West), a grey freshwater crustacean that's
harvested in its breeding season. Prise the shell
off and you'll find delicious white meat inside,
and, if it's a female, maybe the highly prized
orange roe. Hairy crabs are eaten with a sauce
of soy, ginger and vinegar, and, because they
are thought to be cooling to the body, usually
accompanied with warmed Shaoxing wine.
