In our food forays in Shanghai we are coming across evidence of foods that have obviously originated in the area of the world that is modern day China and have then found their way west, no matter what the inhabitants of Europe will have you believe.
The Muslim Restaurant, Guyang Road
- Interior, Muslim Restaurant Guyang Road
- Börek
The first is a filou-pastry meat-filled bun that we found in the Muslim Restaurant on the Guyang Road, a road filled with all sorts of interesting Korean, Japanese and Chinese restaurants. The evening we went it was the night before New Year's Eve and the majority of the small family-run restaurants were closed in anticipation of the forth-coming Spring Festival holidays, but the Muslim Restaurant was open, so we dived in. They described their food as Western Food, but they didn't mean Western Europe, they meant far Western
- Muslim Restaurant Guyang Road
China in Central Asia which is home to native Turkic ethnic groups such as the Uyghurs. They live in the far western province of Xinjiang. Many of them argue that they Central Asian rather than Chinese and it is this which has caused much recent unrest, like the Tibetans. It is from this same ethnic groups of Turkic people that the Turks moved westwards through Turkmenistan and the other "Stans" to come to rest in Anatolia first possibly with Attila the Hun, but most definitely in Medieval times to the land now known as Turkey, which takes its modern name from these people. Recipe books will have you believe that the Ottomans invented Böreks in Turkey.
- Kebabs, lamb and heart
But we had a version of them in this restaurant. Which means that they originated in Central Asia, way before the Ottoman Empire. As well as our beef Böreks flavoured with cinnamon, we had kebabs; one set of juicy succulent lamb, the other of lambs heart, which although tasty from its spices was a little dry. After these starters we went onto have a mutton dish with sliced fresh green and red chillies and onion flavoured with cardamom. Richard ordered a milk drink which tasted, he said, of Ovaltine. I had, which surprised us in a Muslim Restaurant, a bottle of beer. This was followed by another spicy dish, one of chicken, which defeated us in the end. It again was spicy with fresh green chillies and dried red ones, but we had over-ordered and only managed to eat about half of it. One of the problems with chinese food is that the only knife they use is the meat cleaver, so they can
- Chicken Dish
be over zealous with their chopping. This chicken had been chopped bones and all, so to eat it, you had to sort out a lot of bones in your mouth, which after a while gets rather tedious if you are not used to eating like that, and having already eaten rather a lot, we really couldn't be bothered. Crunching bones in our mouths is not something we are really interested in doing. Its probably why we don't like eating chicken's feet, a dish that some Chinese like, because they enjoy the crunchiness that the small bones bring.
The Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant
This is a a branch of the famous restaurant in the Old City which dates back to the early 1900s. We had lunch here on New Year's Eve before walking down The Bund to have afternoon tea at the Waldorf Astoria. We were fortunate to have chosen a seat by the kitchen window and were able to watch closely the xiaolongbao buns being made. The Italians will have you believe that they invented pasta and tortellini. I am not convinced. I think Marco Polo brought the food to the West on his return from China.
- Quern for grinding rice
- Ground rice being collected from the quern
Noodles (spaghetti) and steamed buns (tortellini) are made all over China. The noodles can be made from ground wheat or rice. Elsewhere in the food hall we found this quern making rice flour from rice in a kitchen that was making rice noodles from the flour.
- Hot and sour soup
- Wantons
- Xiaolongbao
For our meal Richard had hot and sour soup made with a hot white pepper and I had wontons, which we both followed with xiaolongbao. And from our vantage point we watched the chef hard at work..... He enjoyed having his photo taken and laughed at me every time he caught me with a camera....
If this isn't pasta being made, I'll eat my bamboo steamer.
- Making Xiaolongbao
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