What do I eat?

Shanghai, like any cosmopolitan city, has a limitless array of restaurants with every type of food imaginable.  However, around me, seven miles north of downtown, the variety of restaurants is more limited to different types of Chinese foods and a few failed attempts at Western staples.  My first three weeks in China, I did not pick up a single fork or knife—I only used chopsticks.  While the rest of my group ordered McDonald’s or Burger King within weeks, I did not succumb to the pressure until six weeks into my journey.

During the week, I usually go to local Chinese restaurants, and on the weekends, I will venture downtown to indulge in Shanghai’s upscale restaurants, casual bistros, and quiet cafes.  It definitely took a couple of weeks to adjust, but I have grown to love most of the different varieties of Chinese foods.   I rarely have terrible cravings for Western food, and luckily when I do, I am in a city with at least 100,000 expats and plenty of restaurants that cater to them.  Below is a sampling of my typical diet.

Breakfast

I usually eat a pretty small meal of a small corn-like muffin, a yogurt drink, a couple of bananas or oranges, and some orange juice.  In the morning, I am less willing to experiment with food and it took me a couple of weeks to find all of the elements of my daily breakfast.

Typical Chinese breakfasts typically include egg-based dishes, steamed dough, and different dumplings with spiced meat.  Early in the morning I need to eat something bland without a meat/flavor surprise in the middle of it.  Coffee is not served with breakfast like in the States; SPR Coffee doesn’t even open until 11AM.

Lunch

After morning Chinese classes, I usually eat at one of the handful of local restaurants geared to students and serve the food as individual meals and not family style.  I typically order watermelon juice (chilled or blended with ice) and my favorite meal of black pepper beef in a thick sauce with vegetables and served with steamed rice.  I also get different noodle dishes at lunch that come in a sauce or a broth, and some chopped vegetables and a few pieces of meat. The quality of meat is definitely not the same as the West; there are often bones, as well as varying amounts of fat.  You learn to eat the fat and spit out the bones—I won’t complain about a bad piece of meat in the United States because I know it is way better than in China.

Dinner

While I typically have a quieter lunch, dinner is usually a bigger group outing at a family style restaurant.  On my street there are dozens of small Chinese food restaurants.   Here is a typical dinner at my favorite restaurant, Red and White Stripes (not sure of the actual restaurant name, but all of the waitresses wear red and white striped blouses):

Stir-fried Green Beans.  This is probably my favorite dish in China: green beans, sautéed with chili peppers and other spices.  It is spicy, but the flavors are incredible, and the green beans are always cooked perfectly.
Kung Pow Chicken. Similar to the dish in the States.  The chicken is cut into pieces the same size as the peanuts in the dish and covered in a thick sauce.

Pork with Green Pepper and Onions. The somewhat fatty pork is sliced thinly, coated in pepper, and sautéed with peppers and onions. Unlike a lot of Sichuan dishes, this one isn’t drenched in oil.

White Rice. This is a necessity for spicy food; however, in China they don’t bring it out until the end, so we have to always ask for it multiple times.

Steamed Dough Balls.  This is common in China for breakfast, as well as for dessert.  The dough is made of water and flour, steamed and served with a peanut/honey dipping sauce.

I have been very impressed with Chinese food.  I’ve eaten some weird things (I’ll save that for another post), but even when it has a weird texture, the flavors are usually incredible.  Most of the dishes have not changed in thousands of years, so they must be doing something right.  I already know when I return home I will be craving authentic Chinese food.