When we first moved to Shanghai, with a wide-eyed sense of adventure and enough energy to walk all over exploring the city, we delighted in trying out all the divey little restaurants and street food stalls--you know, searching for all that "real China" stuff. Unfortunately, we soon found out that just because a cheap eatery was a small, mom-and-pop place with the kind of gritty charm we'd seen in Wong Kar Wai films, it didn't mean the food was any good. Ironic, perhaps, that we were introduced to the mala tang (spicy-hot/numb soup) at Chuan Chuan Xiang by a well-heeled Shanghai princess.