Sunday 3rd September. Father’s Day.
Weather: 24-28°C. Cloudy and humid.
Expectations were high. Dangerous I know.
I had previously been on two food walks with ‘Culinary Backstreet Tours’ in Tokyo and Barcelona. Both were excellent.
A Shanghai walking food tour is now added to the list of unbelievable experiences. Logan our guide was terrific; the other four in the group were lots of fun (2 x Aussies, 1 Indian, 1 American); the smells, tastes, textures and flavours… simply fantastic!
To start we met in a park and then watched some Chinese morning dancing by the locals – some were doing the more traditional Tai Chi, but mostly it was more like line dancing. We also watched someone doing water calligraphy.
Then we headed for our first food stop, the Xiangyang food stalls, where we tasted pot-stickers, sweet hot soy milk, fried dough sticks (think Churros), warm buns, soft tofu in broth, and the highlight… Jianbing; crisp egg pancakes filled with soybean paste, chili, shallots, coriander and crisp-fried wonton sheets. The combination of textures and flavours was so incredible. I might try making them for ABC sometime soon (and others!)
This is the pancake base…
And a few pics of the rest of our first course!
A short walk and we stopped for coffee. No coffee for me still, (it’s over a month since I’ve had one) although I was tempted, so I choose a delicious ginger and passionfruit soda. The little café seemed very familiar – apparently it was modeled on a café in Melbourne. Note: Smashed avocado and turmeric latte on the menu 😉
But wait there’s more!
Next stop, we watched noodles being hand-pulled, then enjoyed tasting them doused in scallion oil, along with bamboo tofu with chili. I have a video of the noodle pulling but it wont load 🙁
Another little walk through the back alleyways and into a wet market. So many wonderful fresh vegetables, seafood, and other things, many of which I have no idea what they were.
Next stop (yes I was getting full by now) was for delicious soup dumplings, a Shanghai speciality. We were taught how to eat them (little bite first to make a hole, drink the soup, then eat the dumpling). We also tried some wonton soup here. So much better than any version of either I have ever had in Australia.
To finish (phew!) we had something sweet – egg waffle. Dave particularly enjoyed these.
It was all such a wonderful experience – and what better way to understand a city and its culture then through its food.
Here are some other random photos from the walk and also last nights dinner… (Australian steak and New Zealand lamb chops!)
And a few pics of the view from our hotel room, and the upmarket shopping centre (IFC) it is part of. We are living it up for our last few days 🙂
Happy Fathers Day to the love of my life, best friend and unreal father to our two children. Love you long time XXXX
(Thanks kids for your messages this morning – Dad really appreciated them!)
I wish I could call my Dad who is in the Artic Circle somewhere – but no phone reception there. So here’s a message for you… I love you Dad, you are my favourite Dad in the whole world 😉