Sour Grapes

Owners of the world’s slowest elevator, thankfully the food here is worth the wait. What’s more, the place is squeaky clean and the service is great; the kind of Chinese service where it’s almost too much (”No, I can put the napkin on my lap by myself thanks.”). The word Shanghai in the name of the place is a bit of a token gesture, the menu is very Cantonese, and, while not biblical in thickness, what they do they seem to do well.

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Here we are again at Sweet Dynasty, a branch of the HK based resto located next to Crystal Jade in the basement of the HK New World Plaza on Huaihai rd. It’s not that it’s spectacular but they offer a nicely priced fix of Canto-style food and they have some of the best iced milk-tea in Shanghai… wow does that milk tea get me going!! Sean likes the iced Honolulu coffee.

To start we had some Char Kuay Teow noodles. Sweet Dynasty has the (some might say) nasty habit of putting curry powder in their “Singapore-style” noodles.. it’s ok, I can deal. These arn’t bad noodles, a bit too greasy but there’s a fair amount of shrimp in there and the wok hay is pretty much in effect.

Probably the overriding reason I visit here, apart from the milk tea, is the cheung fan or raw rice rolls. Great cheung fan are so hard to come by and Sweet Dynasty’s are by no means perfection, but they have 6 or 7 different stuffings to choose from (pig liver? no thanks!), this time we had char siu (roast pork) and beef with mushrooms (I think, needed nore orange peel in the filling).

A foray off out of our usual ordering field led to eggplant stuffed with shrimp paste in black bean sauce, in the picture it looks kind of gross but it was actually quite good although I could have dealt with some more black bean in my sauce, a bit less intense that we would have liked.

What we didn’t have this time, and something that I’ve gushed about before on this blog, are the spring rolls. I havn’t had them in a while but they’re pretty textbook perfect, impossibly crispy followed by a little goo in the filling. The rest of the dim sum is worth ordering although the har gow can be a bit MSG heavy. Another stand by for me are the Cantonese style egg noodles in soup although the last time I had one the portion size had mysteriously shrunk. Dessert soups are perhaps the raison d’etre of Sweet Dynasty, so if you dig the warm seasame soups or icy tofu with fruit, and all that stuff then knock yourself out. I’m not really a sugar person.

All in all count about 150¥ for 2 with a beverage each. That usually gives us enough food with a bit extra to take home.

The search for passable dim sum continues…

Fu Lin Xuan has multiple outlets in the city including one in Superbrand Mall. The setting is upscale Cantonese, with an illustrated English language menu of their dim sum offerings.

My one biggest gripe about this place is the quantity of MSG used. The siu mai are not bad but they set my tongue tingling, ditto for the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf. Har cheung has fresh shrimp but the wrapping is overly thick and soft, *sigh*. The standout was a shrimp and vegetable dumpling with a har gow style skin, a nice plump shrimp surrounded in green veg, light and flavourful. Pidan zhou (preserved egg congee) was chocked full of egg, not my cup of tea but pangzi enjoyed it. Wu gok (taro puff) was overcooked, with a slightly tough shell, not enough feathery. From previous visits a dish of shrimp baked in crispy pastry is definitely worth repeating.

It’s not bad dim sum. It’s just not super good.

150Y for 2

2F Hong Kong New World Tower, 300 Huaihai Zhong lu (6372-1777)

SJB is a typically Shanghaiese type of dumpling. And an entirely unhealthy breakfast.

Blogger likealocal.cn calls sheng jian bao a “cousin of xiao long bao” and in many ways it is. For those familiar with xiao long bao, sheng jian is similar to a thick skinned version that’s pan fried instead of steamed. The filling is identical to XLB in that it contains pork and a bit of meat stock. The pan frying of these small buns makes the bottom incredibly crispy and brown while the tops remain doughy, with a texture somewhere in between a dumpling and steamed bread. Arguably, what makes Xiao Yang’s sheng jian is not just the super tasty filling (I’ll be quite honest here, there are many places with filling that’s just as good) but the fact that it’s so popular and the turnover is astounding. Hence, fresh. Hence, not cold. When the sheng jian gets cold it’s of course still good, but if it gets cold, or sits around in the pan, all of that lovely juice is absorbed into the bun and you’re left with something that just isn’t the same. Plus you deprive yourself of the opportunity to scald yourself and stain your clothes with the scalding broth.

54 Wujiang lu

花生汤 -hua sheng tang, peanut soup, originally uploaded by mook elliott.

This soup, peanut soup, is delicious. In my minds eye it was kind of a turn off, images of bland peanut gruel, descriptions by fellow bloggers of “peanut snot”, and so forth… but it is a regional breakfast specialty of Fujian and so deserved a try.
I “found” this bowl outside of the small central market on Gulangyu. The vendor, and his oral hygiene challenged best friend, set up every morning as of early (6 ish) until about 10:00 am or so. His best friend provided the entertainment, yakking to customers, bossing people around, smoking, etc.. while the vendor dished up the soup. Sweet, quite watery, light, and great with a bit of yu tiao (the greasy donut stick in the picture) dunked in it. Certainly worth a try if you run across it and a nice light breakfast.

The most famous place to try peanut soup (Hua Sheng Tang) in Xiamen is “Huangzehe Hua Sheng Tang Dian” which is on Zhongshan lu and is a bustling cafeteria like establishment. I never managed to go there as whenever I stumbled by it was just too hot outside to contemplate peanut soup.
Unsurprisingly perhaps Hua Sheng Tang seems available in SIngapore (much Fujian/Hakka/Hokkien immmigration) with the addition of “yuan” or round rice dumplings.. yipee for Singapore (and Malaysia as well sometimes).

Living in China definitely has it’s moments. Recently I discovered that this blog had been blocked by the red pen wielding grannies and blinkered uber-innocent university students the government uses to censor the internet. Oh well…. If there’s one place I would rather live than Shanghai right now (no it’s not Tehran) it would have to be Hong Kong. The air is slightly cleaner, it’s even more chaotic and bustling, and yet you can be out of the city in a 30 minute bus ride (try 5 hours for Shanghai).  Of course all of that aside the food is way better but growing up in Toronto I  practically feel 1/2 Cantonese so I think I’m biased. All this blathering brings me to Sweet Dynasty, a HK based mid range restaurant that opened recently on floor B1 of Hong Kong New World Plaza on Huaihai Zhong lu (right next to Huangpi nan lu subway station). They have all those Canto-diner favourites, plus a decent dim sum selection, the prices are fair, the decor is nice, and it’s close to my house.

What originally drew us in was the congee. Pangzi has a recently developed soft spot (no pun intended) for rice porridge, especially with pidan (the dark green preserved egg that I detest slightly less than pork liver), so we jumped right on that boat. I’ve become very adept at working a ladle around pieces of preserved egg to serve myself so I let him order whatever congee he wants. It also means I get to order everything else that I want so I figure it’s a fair deal.

Although their selection of congee is extensive it probably isn’t the strongest item on the menu. I’m not gaga for congee so it doesn’t really matter. What we did discover, apart from a more limited but largely higher quality dim sum selection that Crystal Jade, was vegetable spring rolls. (Actually I discovered them. S had been drinking a bit much the night before and only managed a few mouthfuls of rice gruel.) I don’t usually order spring rolls (especially not in North America) byword that they are for grease laden proto-fusion shite. Here however, the vegetable spring rolls come layered in beautifully crispy layers of golden light wrapper. The small amount of filling is perfectly seasoned and flavorful and the “friture” is textbook perfect. Like perfect tempura, these rolls are worth worshiping. A pan fried stuffed tofu skin roll was also recommendable, as were the har gow.

The other thing that will keep me coming back is the relatively large selection of cheung fan (fresh rice paper rolls). I LOVE cheung fan, I don’t know why but I do. My mum HATES it because of the texture of flacid fat but that’s ok, she likes veal liver and I’d rather eat my shoe than liver. Anyhow, Sweet Dynasty has many choices, including such mixes as enoki mushroom and beef, dried shrimp, you tiao, etc… etc… and everyone I’ve tried has been delicious. I’m sure they all are. Wash all this down with a HK style milk tea, a coconut milk based drink, or fruit shakes, and you’re rolling. I especially love the tea as it’s beautifully rich with that bitter depth you find with good chai. A selection of tofu puddings and fruit desserts come in bowls of water, set to smoking with the addition of dry ice. I’m not quite sure how this works but it’s really quite spectacular. I marvel at the danger.

Noodle and won ton soups are also a great source of inspiration for me and SD’s broth is really really good, as are their won tons, as is their braised beef. The menu also lists a wide selection of fried rice and noodle dishes which seem strangely expensive but I havn’t tried them yet so I really can’t say. I can say that I look forward to trying them.

I don’t have pictures. But I ‘m sure that I’ll have some soon.

I’d never been to Din Tai Fung, at least not in Shanghai, so last week, flush with cash, we broke with the Crystal Jade convention and headed there for dim sum. DTF is expensive, in an expensive part of town (Xin Tian Di means “take the foreigners cash” in Mandarin)… especially expensive when you can get lunch for under a dollar, and a bowl of xiao won ton in soup for the under 30 cents.

The one driving force behind the DTF visit was to try their Xiao Long Bao. I could not in all good conscience blather on about how Jia Jia Tang Bao had superb XLB if I hadn’t even smelt DTF’s. Although much hyped on the net and elsewhere, I secretly hoped for DTF’s downfall… leathery torn skin, spilled broth, insipid filling… any of the above would do the enshrine Jia Jia in my head once and for all as the penultimate XLB experience, sending DTF back to Taiwan to hawk it’s imitation XLB. Besides the fact that I have absolutely no power over what a terribly successful operation like DTF does, well, it just wasn’t true; The Xiao Long Bao were superb (albeit with a price tag).

Anything I could have hoped for in the way of failure was not to be. We were literally the first to be seated as the place opened, the staff were still out front having a pep rally, and although the price was a bit steep for Shanghai (25RMB (about 3USD) for 5 dumplings), everything was nigh perfect. Perfect skin, no tearing, no toughness, no weeping of the perfectly rich succulent broth, spilled all over the perfectly set table, freed from it’s companionship with the perfectly sized and textured meat filling. A victory for the “renegade” province and a reason to go back to Jia jia to see if they can hold up their end of the competition. To be honest we havn’t been to Jia Jia in almost 6 months. We hit XLB critical mass last autumn and a January experience, which can only be described as excremental, next to Yu Yuan garden didn’t serve as encouragement.

XLB aside, the DTF menu was not very extensive but what they did do, they did well.

Pork and Shrimp Siu Mai (35 RMB for 5 pieces) came shaped Shanghai style. I don’t know this but I’m guessing , because all the baozi vendors here have a pork and sticky rice dumpling, pork being an often theoretical if not actual ingredient, that Shanghaiese call “siu mai” . The skin was a bit thicker than on the XLB but there was broth in the filling as well, and tasty filling it was.

Shredded Jellyfish with Turnip (38 RMB) was delicious. A great study in the contrast of crunchy textures, lightly dressed with a scallion infused sesame oil. Nutty and a little oily, but not unpleasantly so, not as gelatinously crunchy as a pure jellyfish dish would have been.

Stuffed Beancurd with Pork and Vermicelli in Soup (32 RMB) was tasty enough. I’m not much of a sucker for soups of this nature but the broth was quite nice and I do like bean thread noodles.

Sauteed Cantonese Vegetables (28 RMB). What to say? Good. A bit greasy. Nicely dressed with some stock. Paying money for blanched veg always makes me a bit pissy, but it’s the same everywhere and these were well prepared.

The only thing more outstanding than the food was the service. Absolutely stellar service from the word go. Whoever is training staff at that restaurant should be knighted.

When friends come from out of town (and truth be told I’m preparing for a Royal visit of sorts) we may just have to go here instead of as well as Jia Jia Tang Bao to let them decide for themselves.