Mad About Shanghai

JTstation.info - Your New Shanghai Info Portal

A new free events listing classifieds service has started up in Shanghai called JTstation.info (funnily enough - thats the website too).

On JTstation.info you can interact in 1 of 2 ways:

1. You can post listings for events or promoions,
2. You can view listings of events and promotions.

It is free to join, free use and free to list!

I just found that we can have dim sum at Radisson New World (the UFO building) on Nanjing Rd for 88RMB per person from 8am - 2.30pm.

Some of the things you can do on the site to make it pretty user friendly include:

• Find special offers for wining and dining.
• Setup reservations to accept ticket/seat registration, collect user data and generate printable (downloadable) reports.
• Set reminders for themselves about a specific event which they are interested in.
• Subscribe to our email list to receive the latest/newest events.
• Download events in different formats of your choice.
• No matter which industries you are in, you can find a calendar and category.

So have a look and give it a go - good work boys and girls.

Shanghai - A Restaurateur's Dream

Owning a restaurant in Shanghai (at least the right part of Shanghai) must be a dream come true, cheap food, cheap labour and 17 million customers.

Virtually every night we go out to a decent restaurant (not high end and definately not street food) there is a queue for a table.

Last night we ventured into Lippo Plaza on Huaihai Rd, this is a great location as its packed with restaurants. We went to the top floor where Hot Pot King and Planet Shanghai are. Both restaurants have a seating capacity of over 100, both restaurants had a queue of over 20 people at 8pm (well past the Chinese 6pm peak).

We took our number and sat and waited for 15 minutes before we could go and enjoy our Hot Pot King feast!

So if you are looking for a good business in Shanghai - look at opening a restaurant - people queue up to spend their money.

Image: Queue at Planet Shanghai last night.

Hot Pot on Brad's Birthday

Sabrina just took me out for dinner for my Birthday (yes, today) to our favorite hot place - Hot Pot King in Lippo Plaza on Huaihai Rd. As usually the food was fantastic.

As we don't eat pork, we had a problem there on our first visit where they topped up our fish stock soup with pork. After we caused a scene, a nice young waitress sorted it all out for us. Everytime we have been there since, maybe 4 or 5 times, she comes running over to us and snatches the menu off whichever waiter or waitress that is serving us, she has a chat with us and tells all the other staff around that we are regular customers and that we don't eat pork, so don't use any pork stock.

It makes a nice change to recieve this thoughtful and considerate service.  If you like hotpot, its a great place to head to. Its on the third floor of Lippo Plaza, 222 Huaihai Road.

I am full of hotpot, dragon prawns and beer right now and am ready for a good night sleep.

A China Experience

I went to lunch with a group of 4 other people today at the Japanese restaurant in Times Square today and had one of those funny `China Experinces'.

A China Experience is something that you really don't believe would possibly happen (and wouldn't in most parts of the world) until you see it in person.

We all ordered and as usual the tea flowed quickly and as usual the food started to arrive in a trickle (the Chinese restaurant business do not understand the concept of serving all meals at the same time).

Fairly soon everyone had their food except for me. After a few more minutes Johnathon asked the waitress (in his excellent Manadarin) where my meal was. After she left (saying that she would check) Johnathon told us a funny story about once he waited a long time for his meal and asked the waiter to check on it. By chance where he was sitting Johnathon could watch where the waiter went. Apparantly he walked in the general direction of the kitchen and then stood behind a column. After standing there for a minute, he walked back to the table to tell Johnathon the food was coming.

Best Japanese Restaurant in Shanghai

We just came back from lunch from our favourite Japanese restaurant in Shanghai, and so I thought I would share its location.

It is in the basement of the Shanghai Times Square building on Hua Hai Road (if you don't know it, the building has Lane Crawfords written all over it - but most people will know Shanghai Times Square) I have no idea what the restaurant is called as its written in Japanese, but its the only Japanese restaurant in the basement.

You go down the escalator and it is up near the supermarket end. The decor is excellent, it has lots of booth seating which is comfortable and semi private, there is a bar area for single diners and a sushi train. It has soft lighting (but not too dark) and pleasant back ground music. And on a cold day like today it was so comfortably warm!

The thing that really makes it the best Japanese for me is the fact that the food is superb and the service is outstanding! We have been to about 6 or 8 Japanese restaurants now in Shanghai and I have been mostly disappointed with them - this is the exception.

As you walk in you are greeted by the whole staff in a chorus, then seated either in smoking or non-smoking areas. No sooner than you sit down and there is a nice cup of hot green tea in front of you - and this is never allowed to become empty, there is always someone topping it up.

The choice of food is hard because everything looks so tempting. Today I had a chicken Teriyaki set which included Miso soup, a salad, fried tofu cubes in some brown sauce, rice and chicken Teriyaki. As we were sitting in a booth but next to the sushi train, Sabrina grabbed some plates of sushi. As always, the food was excellent. The flavours subtle, the variety of tastes and textures make the meal very interesting.

The whole meal ended up costing us 63RMB (a little over A$10). We both left feeling extremely satisfied.

The bonus today was they as we left we went a different way to normal and in the opposite corner of the basement we found a great English language bookshop. It had a lot of stuff, especially English magazines and the largest selection of travel books (lonely planet and others) that I have ever seen. So whether you live here or are just visiting and you need a book (business, fiction, travel, magazine, non fiction) then make the trip to Shanghai Times Square - go to the basement, buy your book and then go have some fantastic Japanese!

Shanghai Times Square is located at 99 Huai Hai Zhong Lu (very close to the intersection of Zizang Nan Lu).

Shanghai Famous Dish: Yangchenglake Da zha xie (river crabs)

I can't wait to go back to Shanghai to have my favourite Yangchenglake Da zha xie (river crabs). It will be the right time - Autumn - to have the super yum crabs when I arrive in Shanghai. My friend already promised me that she will get a couple of crabs cooked beforehand and will bring them with her to the airport when she is there to pick me up! Imagine the picture:  I get out of the air plane after 10 hours flight and have a couple of crabs right at the airport.

For whoever loves Chinese food, you've got to try the river crabs if you happen to be in Shanghai in the right season. Late autumn is the best time for eating crabs in Shanghai. From October to December every year, the best quality Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crabs with green shells and white bottoms, rich in fat and ovary are shipped to restaurants all over the world. When the crabs are properly cooked, the fragrance appeals to diners' palate. There are such famous dishes like the crab meat bean curd, lily fruit in crab fat, rice cake in crab meat, delicacies much appreciated by diners.

The local Chinese have a saying that female crabs are to be eaten in September and male crabs in October. This saying has to do with the amount of yellow (the eggs of the female) and paste (white matter in the male) in the crabs. The best way to have crabs is to have them steamed and then dip them into some sauce made of vinegar and ginger -  fresh and delicious.

Good quality crabs from Yangchenglake are always quite costly. I remember my friend and I drove to Yangchenglake a couple of times just for the river crabs. We went to the lake and bought fresh crabs straight out of water. Normally they were RMB120 each (AU$20).  However river crabs from other places are cheaper. You might find some ordinary ones from local seafood market for RMB10 (AU$1.8)each. 

China Takes Over the World - One Restaurant at a Time!

One thing that was particularly noticeable in Europe was how wide spread Chinese restaurants are. From Shanghai specialised cuisine to Szechuan to general Chinese, there was not a single city, town or village that didn't have at least one Chinese restaurant.

In fact, we went through so many small towns and villages in Europe with 2 or more Chinese restaurants that it was impossible to count them all. Many of these towns and villages were devoid of McDonald's stores so our only conclusion is that there must be more Chinese restaurants in the world than McDonald's stores!!

So forget military conquest and economic domination - China has already conquered the world by its stomach share.

That brings me to ask a question - where is the most unusal place that you can find a Chinese restaurant? Please share your discoveries. For us, we found one in a back street on an island of Venice, in Pisa, in little French towns like Ambois and Blois and we found a mini Zhejiang (a province near Shanghai) in the city of Mersch, Luxembourg. Here there was at least 5 Chinese restaurants in a city with a population of about 100,000, with a large number of residents from the wealthy province of Zhejiang.

For me, it was a great relief to find these places because I am not a big fan of cheese and pasta - and for most of Europe that constitutes 80% of their food! The local Chinese restaurant really allowed me to eat well and feel comfortable wherever I went.

Real Shanghai Food Restaurants

Whenever speaking of Chinese food, Aussies may relate to Cantonese food more than any other styles of Chinese food because there are more Cantonese restaurants or Cantonese style of food than any other restaurants/styles in Australia.

Cantonese food sometimes can be “shocking”. Cantonese eaters have a reputation for eating "everything with four or more legs except for the table, and everything that has wings except for airplanes." All of the really funky dishes you hear about like live monkey brains, raw rat babies and cat with snake meat ( called “Fight Between A Dragon And A Tiger”) are Cantonese style dishes (yue cai).

However, Shanghai food is quite different. In my previous post From Braised Fish to Shanghai Food  , I summarized about Shanghai food(Shanghai cai): various, light, sweet and cheap.

If you go to Shanghai and want to try  real Shanghai style food, you have to go to the following restaurants:

• Shanghai Old Town Restaurant: typical Shanghai Cuisine

Address: 242   Fuyou Road, Tel: 021-63289850

Shanghai Old Town Restaurant was set up in the City GodTemple area during Qing Dynasty, more than 100 years ago. It was the first local-food restaurant in Shanghai. It is well-known for preparing fresh fish, prawns, crabs and eels. In cooking it pays attention to the control of flames, rich flavor, original gravy and original taste, thick in gravy and bright in color, mellow and delicious to the palate. The restaurant's dishes are typical of Shanghai-style food. Through long-time study and practice it adopts different ways of cooking for different raw materials and for different parts of the material. It keeps the food fragrant, crispy, fresh and tender without losing the nutrients, thus enriching the flavor of Shanghai food to form a special Shanghai cuisine. Its specialties are the eight-jeweled duck, pork rib in prickly ash and salt, squirrel-shape yellow croaker.

• Xiaoshaoxing Restaurant: famous for plain boiled chicken

Address: 75   Yunnan Road, Tel: 021-63281826

Xiao Shaoxing plain boiled chicken is a famous specialty of Xiao Shaoxing Restaurant, founded in 1943. It is called "a top in China". The restaurant's special skill accumulated in the last 50 years has turned out a plain boiled chicken of best quality. The raw material is yellow-feathered chicken from Pudong. The chicken is fed at regular hours, kept at regular places and with designated fodder, keeping the original nutrition and taste of the chicken meat. The careful selection of raw material and skillful cooking turns out a chicken, crispy in skin, tender in meat, delicious in flavor and beautiful in shape. It has become an indispensable cold dish in a banquet, much appreciated by diners. Besides its plain boiled chicken, the chicken porridge, chicken and duck's blood soup are also its specialties.

• Meilong Town Restaurant: Shanghai local flavor

Address: 22 Lane 1081, Nanjing Road West, Tel: 021-62535353

It is a classic Shanghainese restaurant in a lovely old house which was the 1930s headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party on Nanjing Road. It's food is excellent and the most famous dish is bean curd with crab roe.

• Wang Baohe Restaurant: Crab banquet

Address: 603   Fuzhou Road, Tel: 021-63223673

Known as "king of crabs and ancestor of wine", Wangbaohe Restaurant was founded 250 years ago. It is one of the first restaurants in Shanghai specially serving "Wangbaohe wine and fresh water crabs". It has a cozy and pleasant environment, featured for its oriental national character. In serving the crab dish in its traditional way, the restaurant has developed a "chrysanthemum crab feast". The chrysanthemum feast is noted for its uniqueness, novelty and excellence and has enjoyed a good reputation over the past decade known at home and abroad.

•   Dexingguan Restaurant: Shanghai local flavor

Address: 29   Dongmen Road, Shanghai   Tel: 021-63281426

Dexingguan was set up over 100 years ago in 1883.. This old-brand restaurant was first set up by the Bund. In the early days, all the Shanghai-style restaurants served only such popular dishes as the salty port in bean-curd soup, chicken and duck's blood soup, pork braised in brown sauce. Now, the restaurant prepares special dishes with well-selected raw materials, such as chicken, meat, prawns and fish of good quality. Its well-known sea cucumber cooked with prawn roe is its invention, attractive in color, taste tender and mellow, but not greasy. It is very nutritious and highly commended by customers. Its menu is designed in favor of Shanghai people's palate, while absorbing the good points from Pudong local folk cooking to improve and upgrade its dishes. Its specialties are braised black carp's fin, fresh pork and salted pork cooked with bamboo shoot, and fish lip with shrimps.

•   Gongdelin Restaurant:

Address: 445   West Nanjing Road , Tel: 021-63270218

It is a famous old vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai. Specializes in delicate and unique vegetarian food, especially famous for fake meat dishes.

•  Lubolang Restaurant:

Address: 131   Yuyuan Road , Tel: 021-63280602

It is famouse for Shanghai local refreshment. Located just outside of Yuyuan (the Chinese Garden), it is a good place to have an afternoon tea and snack after catering your eyes in Yuyuan.