Fast Food, Shanghai Style

[summilux]

They take their food very seriously here in Shanghai, with places that range from a guy/girl with a propane burner on a roadside cart to restaurants that make an upscale Manhattan bistro look shabby. I love the street food and I'm fortunate enough to be staying in the older French Concession, where it still feels like it's the early 20th century. I neither speak nor read Mandarin and ordering is pretty much pointing to a picture or something that someone else is eating. By Western standards, food is incredibly inexpensive. Today's dinner was in a roadside diner that is relatively upscale: no TV, ceramic bowls and plates, clean wood tables. One thing I like about Chinese food is the use of contrasts in texture, flavour and temperature in a given meal. This "combo" meal is a good example: Bowl of noodles (freshly made) in a fabulous steaming hot beef broth, something like pulled pork on a ciabata bun (room temperature) and cold salted cucumbers in garlic. Unbelievably good: cost 27RMB (~$5 USD)