Yingying in China - Day 5: Gluttony
My favorite thing about Shanghai - apart from the cheap shopping and the awesome nightlife - is the plethora of Continental and Asian cuisines. Whether you're craving traditional Italian pasta or spicy Sichuan food, you can be sure to find what you're looking for in any street corner. Below are two very different seafood dishes that illuminate the contrasting flavors of Shanghai's restaurants:
Grilled lobster with parmesan cheese risotto and spring vegetables from Brick, a Mediterranean restaurant and wine lounge on Sinan Road. The lobster is so fresh that it literally melts in your mouth.
Huge, cooked spicy fish on a backstreet restaurant that my colleagues took me to. The entire restaurant was steaming because of the spicy flavors of the dishes and all the patrons were sweating while they were eating - a very genuine Chinese eating experience.
This is my fifth day in Shanghai but it already feels like I've been here for two months! The city is so easy to feel at home in due to the Western lifestyle that permeates it; H&M and Starbucks can be found everywhere and the nightclubs have an overabundance of Western party animals. Being a Chinese-Swede myself, I feel that I can appreciate both aspects of the city: the noisy, unruly Chinese culture and the sophisticated, rule-abiding Western culture.
