Shanghai - First impressions... Apr 2013

 

After an 11 hour flight, my first hours feel like I'm stumbling round a funfair staffed by scary clowns while dealing with a mild comedown. Disorientating and borderline terrifying at times and the only way of dealing with it is to dive into a steamer of molten xiao long bao ‘soup dumplings’ from a hole in the wall dive below the raised expressway that grinds through the city. The umami liquor filled tastebombs are available on every street in Shanghai and at 70p a portion they're the perfect cure for whatever ails you. After putting away a basket of these, I start to regain some semblance of sanity. 

Amazingly, it appears that this is also the best time to steam round Yu Garden and the Disneyfied lanes of Old Shanghai. Disorientated and mutely floating round, it's easier to ignore the exhortations to stop and "lookie, lookie" at the fake jade, odd sweets and various bits of Maomorobelia. It's somewhere you have to go (there are precious few 'sights' in Shanghai) but it's not somewhere to linger, and even despite the famed Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant (one of the many places that claims the best xiao long bao in the city) not somewhere to eat either.

The city appears at first like a bellicose, over-exuberant, fast growing child - almost like China's 'Little Emperor', the generation of mollycoddled only sons preciously cosseted under China's 'one family - one child' policy. This one is growing so fast even it's residents don't notice everything. Talking to one, she hadn't even clocked the Shanghai Tower, soon to be the tallest peak in the region (for a few months at least). A large part of that growth is government demand. According to a prominent restaurateur, the architects of the tower still have no idea what's going where within the 80+ story high penis substitute. The key is just to get it up. On hearing that it's difficult to see how they hope to avoid the hard lessons being learnt elsewhere in the world.

For a necessary afternoon breather, we go for a restorative beer on the roof at hidden hostel drinking hole, The Captain's Bar. Set back slightly from the Bund, the neon neo-capitalist boardwalk running along the Pu River, it doesn't have quite the same draw (or view) as pricier neighbours but still lets us watch the awesome lightshow wink into life on the other side of the river over a ping of frosty Tsing Tao. Five times the price of that street lunch, but still easily beating the rates this view elsewhere would cost. I can feel myself slowly coming back to life.

That first evening we set on Sichuanese. Chilli oil fried bullfrog with spring onions and succulent slivers of twice cooked pork (introduced to me originally by Camberwell's Wuli Wuli) are real highlights. The dainty flesh falls off the tiny froggy bones, which are almost soft enough to crunch whole. Sichuanese has always been a favourite of mine, ever since I first had a proper session in Soho's Bar Shu. As much as I love it there, nothing I've had in London comes close to this and I can't wait to get to Chengdu to sample the real deal.

Wending our way home past the fragrant street stalls is a mission in more than one sense. Traffic rules in Shanghai. OK? Horns are not do much used as a warning but more of a statement of intent. A pre-emptive 'I told you so...' Size matters on the roads (and pavements), and if you're walking, you're bottom of the food chain, so you learn quickly to get the hell out of the way.

Over the following days, I gradually acclimatise myself to Shanghai life, before starting a week of Mandarin school. Inevitably those days revolve around food. Don't get me wrong, there are 'sites touristic' in Shanghai, but you could do the whole lot in a couple of days without a problem. The real deal here is the food and the shopping, but mainly the food.

I get into a rhythm of 'free baozi' (at 20p a pop they might as well be) for breakfast, potstickers, pancakes or crispy fried shen bao for lunch and a steaming basket of XLB for mid afternoon snack. Food bill? Generally about 2 quid a day... Dinners out are cheap and varied, but generally of a very high quality.

Rather than run through all of the (many, many) restaurants sampled, I've thrown the best of them into a google map that I'll add, along with a 'Best of' round up of Shanghai and Beijing (handy at least until they close, or refurb, or move. All of which they do with alarming regularity). In over a month of dining, we failed to spend more than £15 a head on food, with many of the meals costing a site less than that. I'll cover off a few of the exceptional meals separately though. I haven't highlighted street food spots, they change too regularly and in any case you'll find them everywhere. Take a chance if you're there and promise me you'll give it a try... 

 Pudong through the blossom

 Street BBQ - Delicious and nutritious!

 Tourist-tastic Yu Gardens

 An obligatory skyline

 

Pavement traffic...