Cooking with character

When we talk about the foods that we associate with the word "Shanghai", immediately, lumpia Shanghai and Yangzhou fried rice come to our mind. For a very long time, this was all I knew about their cuisine until I read the book, Best Selection of Chinese Cuisine by Pei Mei.

The Shanghai School of Cooking is known as Chiang-Che cuisine and there are five categories: Yangzhou cuisine, Sou-Hsi (Souchou and Wushi cuisine), Hangchow, Ningpo and Shanghai cuisine. To complicate matters, Shanghai cuisine is further divided into two branches, Benbang or local cuisine which is a collection of traditional family-style recipes and Haipai or "all-embracing cuisines" since Shanghai is a cosmopolitan city and the better dishes of nearby provinces and western foods are modified to fit local taste.

Rare are the times that we taste Shanghai dishes and Radisson Blu Hotel Cebu (www.radisson-blu.com/hotel-cebu) imported two Chefs, John Wen and Lu Shi Zhou from the Radisson Blu Hotel in Pudong district for a taste of these Chinese culinary treasures at the Feria Restaurant. Chef "Peter" Yeung Siu Man, dimsum Chef Zeng Zi Liang, and La Mien Chef Li Baojiang assisted in the preparation of a lavish feast complete with dim sum specialties, handmade noodles, roast dishes and desserts.

The website http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/eat/40-shanghai-foods-we-just-cant-live-without-964251 is an excellent guide to what are considered typical Shanghainese dishes. These are the Xiaolongbao, Shengjianbao, Hairy crab , Hongshao rou and Beggar's Chicken (Jiao Hua Ji).

The xiao long bao is the siopao with soup. When you visit Shanghai, your host will definitely bring you to a dim sum shop where you can taste this quintessential Shanghai dish. Just be careful because the soup is really hot! In the same eatery, you might also order the Sheng jian bao or fried dumplings, very tasty but loaded with cholesterol since pork skin is added to the meat.

Hairy crabs are seasonal and I was lucky that my trip to Shanghai, excuse me, was harvest time for the female hairy crabs and our gourmet host selected the fattest of the lot in a local market. It was cooked to perfection and that was a great dinner!

Hongshao rou is red braised pork belly which originated from the Hunan province and is said to be the favorite of Chairman Mao Tse Tung. The version served in Shanghai has pork with more fat and plenty of sugar to give an extra sweet and delicious taste.

Another dish that was modified is the Beggar's Chicken, a dish that originated in Hangzhou, a city to the west of Shanghai. Salt was used instead of using clay to seal the chicken which was wrapped with lotus leaf.

All these dishes, with the exception of the hairy crabs, were found during the Chinese Feast at the Radisson Blu Hotel Cebu and my favorites that night were the roast duck, Beggar's Chicken and that wonderful soup made with handmade noodles. Wonderful food memories were triggered when your favorite food columnist had a taste of these Chinese specialties. I did miss though, a dish called "The chicken has no sexual experience" in my last visit to Shanghai. [email protected]