Gary Soup

Pork-bone soup, yeah! You never cease to amaze me, Tissue. You claim to not be Shanghainese, but you always come up with examples of home-cooked stuff you're not likely to find in restaurants. I think 99 Ranch's only presence on the East coast is in Atlanta.

It's very plentiful in Chinese markets in San Francisco. I'd call it more crunchy than starchy.

The USDA lists it as "Water Spinach" and give the following alternate names: ong choi kong xin cai (kong shin tsai) chau gan choi kankun, rau múon, swamp cabbage APHIS Guide to vegetables and herbs

For local specialties, don't forget Dungeness crab (which will be in season through the end of June at least). Logic says that Fisherman's Wharf should be the place to get it, but in truth it's a much better deal at Asian restaurants in other parts of town. On the other hand, it might be satisfying to stop at one of the stalls at Fisherman's Wharf and watch them steam and crack the crab that goes in your crab cocktail or crab salad sandwich. "Mission Style" burritos are uniquely San Francisco, and there happens to be a branch of my favorite (Taqueria San Jose) for "al Pastor" burritos close to Fishwharf (Mason and Francisco). These are dinner-sized things, not noshes. For the Chinatown experience, I rcommend Great Eastern (649 Jackson) for dinner and Gold Mountain (644 Broadway) for dim sum.

There's also a place that makes its own lap cheong on Walter U. Lum Place (along the west site of Portsmouth Square) in SF. It's called "Guangzhou Sausage King" or something like that. They also have them hanging to air-dry.

Are you referring to Chinese sausage? It's excellent stir fried with cucumber.

Marco Polo has something there. Soy sauce and mothers' milk are both very high in glutamates.

This is with Eddie and his Grand Tour in mind, but possibly interesting to others. These are my thoughts on not necessarily the best (in some cases definitely not) but the most notable old-style Shanghainese restaurants: Shanghai Old Restaurant (Lao Fandian) 242 Fuyou Road This use to be the lead recommendation in all guidebooks, but the food has gone way downhill. It's pricey by local standards, but of historical interest. It's the dowdy Grande Dame of Shanghainese restaurants, and there's usually a music ensemble on a small stage playing classical Chinese music. Don't order the braised eel, the last time we were there it was a few meager shreds of eel swimming in an ocean of oil, yet it's one of their priciest dishes. The salt and (Sichuan) pepper ribs are still good, however, and probably the red-cooked pork dishes as well. Sun Ya (Xinya) 719 Nanjing Lu I've posted on the importance of this place in the interface between Cantonese food and the western appetite during the concession era and its possible impact on expectations of Cantonese cuisine abroad. Like Lao Fandian, whatever glories its cuisine ever had have faded, and you'll find it very familiar to your experiences in middling Cantonese restaurants in the US. They do (or at least did) have one floor devoted to seafood hot-pot, however, and it was excellent in its bounty of fresh seafood, including live shrimps (the ones that tried to make a break for it got tossed into the pot first). They also serve a great fried milk dessert. Lao Banzhai 600 Fuzhou Lu Lao Banzhai has similar pretenses to elegance as Lao Fandian (the Eight Treasure tea setups at every place setting is a tipoff) but is less pricey and has much better food. The braised eel here is very good, and, living up to its reputation as a "Yangzhou style" restaurant, has what may be as good a "Lion's Head" meatball dish as anywhere in town. Meilongzhen 22 Lane 1081, Nanjing Xi Lu Meilongzhen started out as a Sichuan restaurant and morphed into a Shanghainese restaurant with Sichuan characteristics, sort of a spicy third stream alongside the saltiness of Zhejiang cuisine and the sweetness of Jiangsu cuisine. It's one of the toughest tables in town to get, especially during wedding season, and probably the main reason every family's cook has ma la doufu in her/his repertoire. The twice-cooked pork and the eggplant dishes are exceptional. They also have a Sichuan-style tea service, with the long-spout tea kettles. Lao Zhengxing 556 Fuzhou Lu A favorite of mine, even though it moved from its original homey premises near the old city to a larger, glitzier space. It serves food which tends to be lighter than elsewhere, serving seafood by season and good fowl dishes too. It's especially famous for its herring dishes during winter, but will always have fresh fish and shrimp dishes. It's a good place to try the "squirrel fish", and it also serves a furong chicken dish I like. Along with Meilongzhen, it's the most copied restaurant name from Shanghai Wang Baohe 603 Fuzhou Lu Wang Baohe bills itself as the "king of crabs and ancestor of wine". It's been around for about 250 years, originally as a wine house and is especially famous for it's hairy crab set meals. If you saw the Iron Chef special where Chef Michiba went to Shanghai and prepared a crab feast, it was Wang Baohe's kitchen he took over for an afternoon. Even if it's not "hairy" crab season, they will have plenty of fresh crustaceans available. Pricey, by Shanghai standards, but won't bust your per diem. Meiyuancun 255 Dalian Xi Lu (Hongkou) 4. No. 240 Lane, Beijing Xilu 18 Xizang Zhong Lu (newest branch) Meiyuancun is my wife's favorite for "stepping out" in Shanghai, probably because the original branch is in her old Hongkou neighborhood. Its somewhat unusual in that its fame spread from a neighborhood to downtown instead of vice versa, and there are now two branches in the downtown area. It's strong in the seafood and vegetable areas, and in attention to presentation, but is quite reasonably priced. Meiyuancun also serves what some consider the best Beijing duck in Shanghai. More thoughts later on less formal dining and snacks in Shanghai.

By the same token, Japanese noodle places will put tempura IN the soup.

They're definitely not out of place. They are used in a number of northern Chinese dishes, notably in the sauce that tops "Squirrel Fish" (songshu guiyu). Costco has pine nuts at a good price but they come in large bags (2.5 lbs., I think) and are likely to get stale before you can ever use them up.

It's all kind of academic. The greenery is more for adornment and color contrast than anything else, and I've seen it with both qing cai and Napa cabbage, and with no greenery. Cantonese bok choy is something that is seldom encountered in the dish's home region (my wife has never used it in anything) whereas qing cai (a.k.a. Shanghai Bok Choy) is pretty much an everday vegetable in those parts. Actually, my wife once used iceberg lettuce, which makes as good a "mane" for the lions' heads as anything else, and holds its crunchiness remarkably well in liquid.

20 Yuan a cup? In Shanghai it's around 4 or 5 yuan at McDonalds. You can get a "Vente" from Starbucks for 15.

That would be qing cai (Shanghai bok choy), most places I've had it.

I'll see your two hours and raise you one.... Three Hour Shizitou Recipe

I think the point is that you want air in the mixture, but also want grain (and I don't mean rice!) The egg is probably essential for the fluffiness. If you're careful about the mixing, I don't think there should be a problem with air "pockets".

Dejah, they are always pork, and sometimes (especially in Shanghai) have crab added (maybe three parts pork to one part crab). I think of the texture as "airy", rather than "spongy", which makes me think of the horribly chewy beef balls in Cantonese dim sum. I suspect that a lot of beating helps, and the egg.

My wife is from Shanghai, which is probably the world capital of dark soy sauce use (think red-cooked everything) and she seems to have gravitated to the Kimlan "lou chau" over here. She also uses the regular Kikkoman (perhaps for its saltiness) for some dishes, plus Chinese "light" soy sauces (brand doesn't seem to matter).

Thanks for posting-they captured them perfectly (although I DO still think of them as San Francisco stores, since there are so many here.) Well, they ARE headquartered in South San Francisco. And get their chocolate from Guittard's factory in Burlingame.

I think Carson might take a back seat to Daly City in that regard.

Not a lot of citrus plants in MT, though ;-)

Here's a more dispassionate evaluation from Europe of the foie gras production process and its effect on the fowl: Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks and Geese For anybody who's not aware of it, the EU has given France and Hungary (the two largest producers) a 15-year deadline to adopt alternative methods of foie gras production. Israel, the world's third largest producer, recently banned foie gras production effective in 2005. The EU and Israel have seen fit to make the protection of farm animals part of a political agenda, and it's not surprising that it seems to be happening here in the US as well. Enjoy the foie gras while you can. The handwriting is on the wall.

Eddie, Ju-Ju says she DOESN'T blanch the bamboo shoots. Yet they never taste bitter when cooked. She just hacks off the outer layer with a big knife or cleaver. Life's too short to worry about a little wastage, I guess.

I think we're on the same page! I keep meaning to ask you if you are a Shanghairen.

How about "Think globally, eat locally," for a slogan...

Rough-cut it on the bias (no more than 1/2 inch thick at the thickest) and simmer it in a savory stock with fresh pork leg on the bone. Add knotted tofu sheet strips and (optionally for the New Year holidays) egg jiaozi and you'll have Shanghai's favorite soup, "yan du xian". It's traditionally made with salt pork or ham (symbolizing last year's preserved bounty) but my wife likes to use fresh ingredients throughout. Maybe she wants to forget last year. Traditional Yan Du Xian She also likes to julienne the bamboo and cook it with pork loin cut to a similar size with the usual Shanghainese stir-fry base ingredients (easy on the light soy sauce). She makes this year round with tinned bamboo, but it's orders-of-magnitude more tasty with fresh bamboo shoots. A little chili is optional, too. Out here in CA, snow peas are just coming on line.