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Lan Ting

Authentic, home-style Shanghai cooking, south of 'Heaven' - By Derek, Nov 19, 08

All too often, foreigners living in Shanghai see a monstrous line of locals in front of a food stall, get discouraged, and walk right on by. However, some really great street food awaits the adventurous, and all it takes is a few zhenges and a little fore-knowledge to try it out. After living here a few years you come to realize Shanghai's best local dining experiences usually take place at restaurants that have neither English signage nor pictures on the menu.

Lan Ting looks a lot like all the other small restaurants on Shanghai's side streets (actually, it's probably smaller), except there's a perpetual crowd of people waiting in front, sitting in the cheap plastic chairs and stools that also make up the restaurant's seating. So why should you seek out Lan Ting as apposed to your local? Authentic home-style Shanghai cooking. A lot of white collar locals are just too busy or tired after work to cook a meal (Lan Ting attracts a crowd in their 20's and 30's), or even more likely, they no longer have the recipes or ability to cook the way their grandmas used to. Lan Ting has held on to those old Shanghainese recipes, and keeps people coming back for that nostalgic taste. Lan Ting offers the genuine Shanghai meal, just a stone's throw away from the Xintiandi's theme park version of the "real" Shanghai.

Eating at Lan Ting is simple despite the lack of an English menu. When you get to the restaurant (the only storefront on Songshan Lu without a lit sign) you tell the older man standing in the doorway how many people you are with and join the crowd waiting in the front. Lan Ting takes advantage of this perpetual crowd: a waiter will come to you while you sit outside and take your order, so that when you get to your table, your food should be doing the same (no need for cold dishes).

Look around at the five other tables inside the closet sized room and you'll notice every table has three (maybe four) of the same dishes. You bao xia (油爆虾) seems to be a major dish at all of Shanghai's remaining home-style restaurants (Also check out the one on Jinxian Lu); it's a flash-fried river shrimp dish, served in a light sweet brown sauce of rice wine, ginger, sugar, and soy sauce. Everyone who comes here orders this dish, but locals are much better at removing the body - head, arms, and tail - than I am. My two favorite dishes are ji gu jiang (鸡骨酱) and mian tuo huang yu (面拖黄鱼). Ji gu jiang is chicken served in a very thick brown sauce that is sweet and sticky, similar to a sweet American BBQ sauce, but, appropriately, made with soy sauce -- this is Lan Ting's true specialty. The second one, mian tuo huang yu, is a great example of Shanghai's history influencing its cuisine (or so I conjecture). This fried fish dish is similar to English fish and chips, minus the chips, but still served with vinegar.

The soup on everyone's table is ji cai dou fu geng ( 荠菜豆腐羹), tofu and Chinese greens with shredded pork. Its taste is light but it's a healthy balance to the other dishes, and great as the weather gets colder. Lan Ting also serve a variety of green vegetable that change weekly. I last had fu ru kong xin cai ( 腐乳空心菜 ), spinach, served as the Shanghainese serve most of their greens, with a splash of bai jiu. Ordering three main dishes, soup, a vegetable dish, and drinks for three people comes out to around 140rmb.

My one complaint is that the restaurant's size sometimes feels like an annoyance. You never feel rushed, but when you are in a group of three or four, the constant passing of waiters is a bit of a distraction. Still, Lan Ting offers take-out for the claustrophobic.

Overall, Lan Ting is a similar social experience to a pizzeria in New York. For Shanghainese, this is the food that comes from the kitchens of their childhood -- both CEO and secretary come here for a nostalgia that can't be found in the typical showy Shanghai restaurant. Down the block at Xintiandi, food is served out of the frames of a fabricated Shanghai, but at Lan Ting one finds the city's true spirit relished.

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