Chi Tung will be writing a biweekly column from Shanghai, China.
Find out more about Chi on our About page and watch for his first post this Thursday!

Being a proper eater means yielding to the gut. I don’t mean gut in the purely physical sense, though it’s no coincidence that some of the finest chefs pack some of the more impressive paunches this side of sumo wrestling. No, what I’m referring to is listening to your gut and blocking out those whose palates can seem somehow beyond reproach. Sampling the world’s cuisines doesn’t require an encyclopedic knowledge of gastronomic terminology. Things it does require: attention to detail, investment of all your senses (not just the ones that happen to be easier to access), and hunger. When all else fails, when conventional food wisdom gets you nowhere, go with the gut. The gut is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-encompassing. Without the gut, you get the Lonely Planet.

The reason I bring up the Lonely Planet is because it’s how I was first introduced to food in China. For the uninitiated, Chinese food in China itself is about as penetrable as an iron curtain. I’m Chinese American. All throughout childhood and adolescence, my mother pampered me, not with toys or affection but with obscene amounts of home-cooked, vertigo causing, stomach imploding Chinese grub. I still arrived in China with visions of rat infested kitchens, cardboard stuffed dumplings and plenty of “secret sauce” invisible to the naked eye. Better safe and sanitized than sorry, right?

Cardboard stuffed dumplings aside, I’ve been an eyewitness to all of the above here in Shanghai. I’ve also tasted the best xiaolongbao in the world (take that, Din Tai Fung). I’ve dined repeatedly at a Shanghainese restaurant that actually serves Shanghainese food. I’ve had Japanese tonkatsu that was so moist and tender I was amazed to discover it wasn’t flown in straight from Tokyo. I’ve ordered, by phone and one night in advance, a Chinese baker’s dozen (anywhere from 6-15) of scallion pancakes, handrolled, pan-fried and coal-oven-burned by a hunchbacked old man living in a ramshackle hut about the size of my bathroom to beat out the inevitable deluge of locals who would swarm his establishment the next day and peck out the eyes of anyone who dare cut in line.

After a fair amount of eating in this city, the lesson I’ve learned best is that the best food in Shanghai is hardly ever Shanghainese. In fact, it’s not even really Chinese. This isn’t my contrarian, postmodern way of looking at Chinese cuisine; food in Shanghai is regionalized, then it’s de-regionalized. Sichuan cuisine gives birth to Shanghainese-Sichuanese fusion, which ironically tastes like neither – but can still be great! Hand-pulled northern noodles start off thick and doughy (a distinctly northern characteristic) and end up finely hewed, even vermicelli-like (a southern attribute). In this day and age, there’s really no reason to get uppity about cultural authenticity or ornery about place of origin. Yes, Chinese food originated in China. No, that doesn’t mean it isn’t better elsewhere (see: Taiwan, Singapore, and certain pockets of Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Toronto and Vancouver).

At some point I’ll get into why certain hole-in-the-walls can be gritty and delicious, while others are simply grimy with no redeeming value. Today, I’m about long-winded proclamations, because, well, that’s what self-proclaimed foodies-who-aren’t-really-foodies do best. To give you a taste (pun sadly intended) of what I hope to deliver in future scribblings: myths will be debunked, conventional foodie wisdom challenged and many a rope-a-dope musing on misunderstood or overvalued dishes, designed to arouse anger, excitement, curiosity, and hopefully hunger. I won’t always be right, but I promise to always speak from the gut.

Share this story. Stay hungry.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 11:18 am and is filed under Shanghai, news.