The second night of orientation, we were taken to Shao Xing Restaurant near the People's Square, which featured Zhejiang flavor food. The photo above is of one of the first dishes, a flayed, fried fish smothered in sweet, almost cloying pineapple sauce.

As with all of the orientation meals, the menu was pre-ordered, and the dishes arrived fast and furious.

This dish, which I dubbed "corn pancakes" literally consisted of whole corn kernels. The kernels were swathed in a light batter and fried into a whole pancake, which was in turn cut into triangles and drizzled with mayonnaise. By the time it reached our table, it had cooled down a bit -- the overall product was room temperature and welcomingly dried out. I say "welcomingly dried out" (is that a word, Mom?) because everything else we were served was so wet and heavy.

In the background is a dish that I loved, and am sorry that I did not get a better photo of, featuring a bowl of curried pork and lentils was surrounded by steamed buns. The buns were shaped like seashells and cut down the middle, like a hot dog roll. You load up the bread with the filling and eat them with your hands.

Then arrived corn-meal-batter-fried-pork-rib fritters (almost corn dog-like).

The fritters were drenched in a thick vinegary sauce and shrouded in raw sprouts. The sauce here had a real nice kick, almost like barbecue sauce, but I could only eat one of the fritters.

The next dish, a thick fish-and-tofu soup, arrived with a raw egg floating on top.

The fish taste was kind of hidden (it all looked like tofu), but upon detection, it was quite strong. The egg played its usual role, melding with the ingredients and adding heft. And it was delicious. But when presented with soup as an eight or ninth dish, I prefer a thinner, brothier incarnation.

This was the final dish that arrived that I ate.

Consisting of shredded firm bean curd floating in a pungent mushroom and chili broth, this dish was delightfully earthy yet light. Like the soup, I would have preferred to have had it arrive earlier in the meal. No matter--I managed to eat enough of it to have an opinion.

On separate nights, we were taken to restaurants that claimed to feature different regional flavors. In my opinion, the dishes presented were almost uniformly thick, sweet, and greasy, true to what I had read of food prepared in Shanghai. Delicious, yes, but definitely not what my Cantonese-reared palette is accustomed to.

Shao Xing Restaurant
Shanghai