I'm always trying to dig up new and better things to eat. My conversations tend to go like this: "Hey, how are you?" Them: "Blah blah blah" Me: "Right, cool, sounds nice... Eat anywhere good lately?"

Most people hold on to their secret spots in the face of my asking, thinking that by divulging them, they'll somehow be "ruined". It's an elitist and misplaced thought, tied up in fears about being able to get a seat and an idea that once some vague "others" get in, the quality's gonna take a nosedive. Think about it, man. Holding on to "secret" places doesn't make sense. For one, someone told you about it. Spread the love. For two, the situation -- tiny, unknown place; outstanding food; reservations gobbled up by a wave of customers -- hardly exists here. Half of the time, when I finally manage to extract the address of someone's special place, I show up to a busy restaurant. Even on the odd occasions where it might make selfish sense -- Maekawa, for example -- what's the point of hiding it? Too secretive, and your special place is going out of business.

I get the idea. I subscribed to it for a while, holding on to a handful of places that I didn't want you ruining. But I got over it. I tried to picture what a "ruined" restaurant looks like -- Di Shui Dong? Guyi? Both of those places have faults, but they've got a lot of positives, too, and they're going to be like that whether I'm going or you're going or half of Xuhui is going. When I realized I couldn't picture a "ruined" restaurant -- POOF! -- the fantasy evaporated, and then the whole idea revealed itself as the stupid and selfish maxim it is. Shanghai is not overflowing with enough spectacular restaurants and dishes. We gotta share, man, you know, let it all out.

So, I'm clearing house. I haven't held back on much over the years. This is all I've got. Have at 'em.

The Wild Game Place

I'm not sure if this joint has a name. Let's call it The Wild Game Place. Downstairs, it's an unassuming tea shop. Upstairs, there's an anteroom with guys playing mah-jongg for cash and two unspectacular private dining rooms serving wild game from Anhui. It's gotta be illegal and if you want in, you've gotta have someone vouch for you to the owner.

There's no menu here. You reserve a time and a number of people -- the number of chairs suggest six to ten -- and then show up to a plastic-lined table set like the one in the picture, overloaded with home-style Anhui cooking. On the night I went, it was a lot of braised, brown meat of questionable provenance. There was a muntjac stew, a tiny deer who, judging by the size of rib cage, wasn't much bigger than a kitten; slices of fried wild boar belly (pictured below); a hearty stew of badger and white radish; and a couple of dishes we couldn't identify. Braised for long periods of time and seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, and ginger, the differences in the game are obliterated. Mostly, it tastes like overcooked meat. The owner assured us that none of it was endangered, and for the 100rmb price tag, it seems unlikely it was, but in the same breath, let out that most of his twenty or so customers on a given night are gov't officials. Take that for what you will. They don't come for the chicken soup.



The owner is a plain-looking guy from the mountains of Anhui with a buzz-cut and a natural bent on food. All the game stuff is, I imagine, his bread-and-butter and a good way to curry favor with powerful people, but he started the joint as a way to keep eating the pure, fertilizer-free food of home. Now -- if you believe him -- he doesn't just have people bring him eggs, vegetables, and chickens from Anhui, but even the water he uses to brew a rough, green tea and cook the chicken soup. His groceries are carried by hand on the trains.

I've got no clue how the average person eats here. When I went, I tagged along with a friend who had an in, and this isn't the kind of place you can stroll in casually for dinner. Hell, I hardly remember where it was -- somewhere around the Dongchang Lu metro station area, north of Shiji Da Dao. Maybe look for a tea shop with a wire curlicue staircase in the back.

Maekawa

Maekawa is Sushi Oyama without white people. It's really only the Japanese who are cool with spending 800rmb on sushi and sashimi at a place whose name carries no cachet -- and Willy. That dude knows all the great Japanese spots.

Maekawa is a small space -- four private rooms, eight seats at the counter -- done up in traditional pale woods that hides out on the fourth floor of an unassuming block of Hongqiao Lu. It's as expensive as you want to get -- how much toro can you eat? -- but averages somewhere in the high hundreds for dinner. Occasionally, there are sea creatures here you won't see anywhere else -- Japanese fan lobsters, with the beautifully sweet flesh of a langoustine, for example -- and a standard in the kitchen that sets it apart from other Japanese places around town. There is a menu, but you're probably better off just telling the staff what you wanna spend and letting them work it out for you. Gotta speak a bit of the Chinese or Japanese for this one, for sure.

Laifood 99

Hong Kong has/had that thing with private restaurants, the ones in people's homes, but Shanghai never really picked up on that. Laifood 99 is the only one I know of, and it's hiding in plain sight on the western end of Fuxing Xi Lu. Before Boxing Cat and all their rabble-rousing moved in, the quiet stretch's most prominent neighbor was probably Marrakech. Laifood 99, also called Fuxing 99, is a few doors down, towards Yongfu Lu. This powder-blue guy right here.



Frankly, it's not all that special. The Deco-era building is cool, but the interior is done up in heavy Shanghainese style, with floral sofas in the six private rooms -- Laifood 99 is private-rooms only -- and a distinct grandma vibe about the place. Also, it's musty as hell. You can almost smell the mold growing underneath all that rose-patterned wallpaper on the first floor.



The whole place seems styled after the Fu family of restaurants (this and this), which is a good starting point. Fu 1088 is my favorite Shanghainese place in town. But both Fu restaurants do the nostalgic Shanghai villa thing much better, with great restoration, a heap of elegance, and a precise kitchen. Laifood 99, on the other hand, might have a chef from Fu 1039, cooking almost-there upscale Shanghainese cuisine, but the paint is chipped and the wallpaper is peeling. Leave this one's hairy crab specialties and foie gras dishes where they belong -- with gov't officials and aging businessmen.

The Cheap Avocado

The cheap avocado is the holy grail of expat shopping, right? Here's where you get 'em, ten kuai a piece: 274 Wulumuqi Lu, just south of Wuyuan Lu, next to the duck neck place. You wouldn't know it from the exterior loaded with amaranth, lotus root, radish, and all kinds of other things that are not good in guacamole, but Mrs. Jiang has been slinging expat-food for a while now. Ask for basil and she pulls out a many-kilo bag of the fresh stuff, followed by a string of questions, mostly in English: Pine nuts? (She has two types.) Fresh mozzarella? (Made in Jiading, not half bad, 17rmb per bag.) Mint? Smoked salmon? (Norwegian, frozen, 50rmb per jin.) Chicken breasts? (Frozen, 10rmb per jin.) Anchovies? (Tinned, 12rmb a pop.) Tuna? (Frozen, 50rmb per jin.) She's got red wine vinegar and canned chickpeas and shallots, too. At the moment, she even has some lovely "organic" blueberries from Qingdao, 12rmb per half-pint. Take your burnet and sorrel and stuff it, City Shop.

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