峥峥饮食 Zhēng Zhēng Yǐnshí

All the dancing and beer drinking after a night at The Shelter gives way to intense cravings for some good eats to soak up the remaining alcohol and lull you to a contented sleep. Your body wants something comforting and this night the skewers from the street hawkers are not going to cut it.

After rolling into a taxi, a friend tells the driver to head towards Changning Lu near Huayang Lu to go to a noodle shop there. “I know this great place. It’s a cheap noodle shop, but the noodles are great!” The taxi driver tells him he already knows where this place is. If the taxi driver knows about this place, it is an excellent sign.


Before us is Zhēng Zhēng Yǐnshí峥峥饮食, an unassuming hole-in-the wall kind of place with bare formica tables. The pinyin translator I used told me that zhēng zhēng yǐnshí means “lofty (soaring)” and “food and drink.” Next to the dining area is the kitchen and prep area where a guy is pulling noodles in one window and passing them through a gap in the divider to the guy standing over a boiling vat of water to cook them in the next window. The hand-pulled wheat flour noodles or lā miàn 拉面 is commonly made in the Lanzhou style (Lanzhou is the capital city of Gansu province in northwest China), but the noodles here are made in Hunnan style. The dough is stretched and twisted until long, thin noodles are produced.


My friend quickly asks if we want beef and if the noodles will be in soup or dry. I opted for the soup option and they request their noodles dry. The noodles were cooked to perfection and the broth was meaty and slightly spicy. Even dry, the noodles were not too oily or dry enough to stick together. The coriander or cilantro, cumin, and scallions gave the noodle soup a nice fresh zing. However light the meal appears to be, the noodles are actually really heavy and oily and you can feel the weight in your stomach after forking out the 6RMB.


Wow. That was tasty. Definitely going back there again. That taxi driver must really know what he’s talking about for great cheap eats in Shanghai.

峥峥饮食Zhēng Zhēng Yǐnshí. No. 3, Lane 484, Changning Lu, Zhongshan Park (near Huayang Lu), Shanghai, China

Food Fusion

A very recent article on SmartShanghai claims that they found the Malay real deal in terms of authenticity considering the lack of authenticity in Shanghai’s other foreign food establishments (at least in terms of Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean, and Indonesian). Promises of authenticity are tempting enough to give Food Fusion a shot, especially after recovering from a hangover.

The restaurant was not too full when we entered with a handful of Chinese and laowai littered about. It is a bright and colorful place with plush booth seats. Maybe these diners also came in hopes of the real deal in Malaysian cuisine.


Kang kong or morning glory was the first dish out. The chilies and shrimp paste gave it a little kick, but the vegetables were slightly overdone.


The roti was slightly crispy to soak up the savory and somewhat oily curry. It would have been better if the chicken in the curry didn’t have the bone attached. There were only 3 pieces of rough cut dark meat chicken and 2 or 3 potato pieces. The chicken was tender and the potato was not underdone.


The beef rending was really tender and falling apart and relatively spicy compared to the rest of the meal. This was a good one. The roti was also good for picking up chunks of the beef curry.


The shrimp assam was not very impressive, being slightly overcooked. The flavor was nice, but nothing to come running back for. The other disappointment was the calamansi juice, which looked unnaturally bright yellow and was warm with ice floating on top. Unfortunately, the taste was mild from concentrate and laced with artificial sweetener.

The four dishes, tea, and calamansi juice came to a grand total of 191RMB, which seemed like a lot when our referral “ate for eight” at a total of 646RMB. The dishes seemed kind of hit or miss, but this perspective is mostly due to the disappointment in the shrimp and coming in with exceedingly high expectations of the kang kong. Still, a good meal and worth checking out at least once.

Food Fusion. 918 Huaihai Zhong Lu -Parkson 8th Floor, Metro Line 1 Shan xi nan Lu Station. Shanghai, China

Kabb

Comfort breakfast staples are well-advertised in Shanghai brunch establishments, at least outside of the flashy brunch buffets offered at high-end hotels. Word of the banana pancakes at Kabb were thrown around enough in Shanghai expat publications that it beckoned a try.


Located in the lanes of Xintiandi, Kabb provides an excellent spot for al fresco dining on the cooler, more temperate Shanghai days. Perfect for people watching (mostly laowai), it is a nice setting for a lazy brunch.

The idea of pancakes was thrilling. The actual plate was not.


The stack was large at four high, but plain. The menu description was misleading because all that was delivered was a stack of plain pancakes with a few slices of banana. The pancakes were on the dense side, though offering a somewhat decent medium to absorb any liquid. Most of the flavor lay in maple syrup. Not exactly a breakfast I would ever run back to spend 70RMB on.

Also slightly disappointing was the spinach frittata with a slice of bread and potatoes cooked with ham. The spinach and feta mixed with egg only existed in the top half of the frittata. It seemed like the bottom layer of the frittata was just plain egg and all the flavorful bits were poured on the top half instead of being equally distributed. The potatoes were slightly on the oily side.


The plates are large and filling for what you get, but the food is nothing special, especially for what you pay (though you are in Xintiandi). Kabb better serves as a spot to have a coffee or a drink in a more trendy setting.

Kabb. Unit 1, Bldg 5, North Block, Xintiandi, Lane 181 Taicang Lu, Xin Tian Di, Shanghai. Near Madang Lu. Metro Line 1 Huangpi Nan Lu Station. 太仓路181弄新天地北里5号楼单元1室 近黄陂南路, 地铁1号线黄陂南路站