Jetsetting Foodistas | Shanghai: China's Modern Side

Mark at Shanghai
Jetsetting Foodistas: A Travelogue by Mark

Shanghai is China’s largest city, and very much a contrast to Beijing. You would go to Beijing to see China’s ancient history, but you go to Shanghai to see China’s modern face. As much as I would like to delight you with stories of the fantastic food you can find in Shanghai, unfortunately we didn’t have much free time and I found the food to be a little nondescript. It can’t be said that there’s nothing interesting to eat there though, so if you have an open mind, you should do just fine.

There are certainly lots of different things to eat in Shanghai. Shanghai literally means “above the sea”. So seafood is definitely a cuisine that can be had there, but sometimes in forms you would not recognize. Oh sure they have the regular things:

Clams & Scallops

And little soft-shelled crabs

But they also have such delicacies as:

Alligator (338 yuan($48.75)/500 grams!)

Geoducks & Turtles

These critters, I have no idea what they even are, but apparently you eat them like shrimp.

And these things, I also don’t know what they are but I would not even want to touch those, much less eat them.

One of the interesting places to go in Shanghai is Nanjing Road, one of the world’s busiest shopping streets and the longest as well at 6 km long. There, as well as in the surrounding areas, are various shops and eateries for you to try to your heart’s content.

They range from the familiar

To the not so familiar

There are various places there where you can get freshly squeezed juice

As well as this place called Costa Coffee, where we saw the very very large cups of coffee.

As western as Shanghai might seem, the Chinese part is still there. You cannot under any circumstance go to Shanghai and not try xiao long bao, steamed buns filled with meat and soup. If you happen to go to the province of Hangzhou as part of your trip, try their Beggar’s chicken, which is a chicken which is wrapped in lotus leaves and then covered with mud and cooked. The covering of mud is supposed to keep all the flavor inside and results in a tender, flavorful chicken.

However you see China, there is no doubt that it is a fascinating mix of East and West, capable of catering to the needs and wants of every kind of person.

This has been Mark Wu.

I’m out like strange worm things…

More pictures at my Multiply.