Salute

If you are of the persuasion that a great neighborhood includes a cozy, homey wine bar with cheap bottles and nibbles, Salute is your Italian spot in Shanghai. House wines (imported) start at 130-160RMB per bottle.

Salute has a small retail store and display case for cured meats, cheeses, and other antipasti. You can buy bottles and meats, cheeses, and other cold items cut to order to have at home or enjoy it right there. The dining menu is written on a small chalkboard featuring simple Italian fare. For seating options, there is the outdoor patio, covered patio, or the few small tables in the store. All the furniture are dark, rustic wood pieces. There are even blankets available if you feel chilled from sitting outside. A couple air-conditioner / heater units are fixed where there is space, but there were also a couple portable heating units that could be rolled adjacent to the table.

The service seems a bit short-staffed or still in training. After being seated and asking for glasses of water, the water jug never came until the server was asked again. The wine bottles came, but without wine glasses. The server went to help another table first, leaving a bottle of wine sitting in front of anxious patrons. However, the food came out quickly after it was ordered and the plates were distributed evenly between the diners.


The salad plates were generous. The caprese (58RMB) had large, thick tomato slices accompanied with generous medallions of fresh mozzarella. The cucumber and tomato salad (35RMB) was also large. However, a sprinkling of dried basil was used in both instances as if hoping to impart the essence of basil. No one is really sure what could be accomplished with dried basil, except for a few mao. There was also a green salad, the bulk of which was an artfully arranged bed of lettuce leaves and tomatoes, but it was nothing more than that.


The antipasti special platter had preserved ham in oil, green olives stuffed with anchovies, black olives, cauliflower in vinegar, and cold aubergine. The vegetables provided a sharp, acidic tang to the salty meats. The charcuterie plate (68RMB or 98RMB for large) had several slices of cured ham, salami, and mortadella. The prosciutto is cut on-site, though the slices were not as thin as the ones cut at City'Super. The cheese plate (58RMB or 88RMB for large) had four cheeses: parmesan, cheddar, bleu cheese, and emmental. The blue cheese was soft and moist, looking like it was cut from a round. Its color was mostly creamy beige with some darkened areas from the mold. Out of the four, the aged parmesan and bleu cheese were the clear winners for quality. The emmental or the cow-milk cheese that it was most similar to was flavorless against the other three it came with. The bright orange cheddar cheese sticks tasted and looked cut straight from the Land O'Lakes block. The bread did not come out until after everything was served, so the meats, cheeses, and antipasti did not get to see the bit of bread it was asking for. The panini was made with prosciutto and salami and pressed in a proper panini grill that left wonderful grill marks and a lightly caramelized exterior from being brushed with olive oil. It was an even balance of bread, meat, and gooey cheese and worth throwing 50RMB down for.


It is already a bad sign when the strawberry sauce accompanying the cheesecake tastes like cheap store-bought, watered-down jam. The cheesecake was bland and lacked the rich and cheesy quality known of cream cheese. The tiramisu was was made up of layers of thin, spongy cake and flavorless cream constructed in a square of perfection. Not a single ladyfinger broke up the monotony of the precise lines. Salute exudes a cozy, comfortable, at-home ambiance, but these desserts do not reflect that in the least.

For 11 people on a Sunday night, 1340RMB covered 2 bottles of house red, 2 caprese salads, 2 salads of tomato and cucumber, 2 green salads, 1 platter of special preserved items, 3 charcuterie plates, 2 cheese plates, 3 panini, 2 tiramisu, and 1 cheesecake.

Salute, at the moment, is better suited for drinking wine at than for a meal, unless too much wine requires some bit of food to absorb the alcohol. The ambiance is comfortable and would make a place to spend a lazy night. So yes, Salute could be your neighborhood wine bar.


Salute. 59 Fuxing Xi Lu, by Yongfu Lu (复兴西路59号,近永福路), Shanghai, China. Tel: 3461 9828

French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese Sandwich

A bowl of French onion soup emitting a fragrant aroma with hints of dry white wine (and perhaps cognac), big crouton, melting Gruyère and maybe (I say maybe for the 'purists') thyme and bay leaf is screaming grilled cheese sandwich. All the components are there (bread and cheese, clearly) and a French onion twist with its slow-cooked onions caramelized to a golden brown sweetness.

Grilled cheese is a simple American classic. But to make it taste outstanding, quality components are necessary. In addition to good cheese and bread, the texture must also be considered. A golden, buttery, crisp bread surface with soft interior and cheese melted through until gooey. Lackluster grilling and un-melted cheese are already signs of grilled cheese gone wrong. Personally, I prefer to butter toast the inside of the sandwich bread as well so the interior is not soggy, mushy, nor saggy.

This French onion soup grilled cheese sandwich was my first experiment. I took some freshly baked French baguette already at room temperature and cut it in half lengthwise. From a vat of French onion soup, I ladled a healthy helping of the soup onions onto the bread. Rich soup the onions carried soaked into the bread to add flavor, but the thick crust would protect the exterior from getting soggy. A layer of Gruyère was placed atop the onions. In a cast-iron pan over medium-low heat, a nob of butter was melted and the sandwich placed on top and weighted with another heavy pan until one side browned. The process was repeated for the other side so it the sandwich would be evenly crisped. Toasting the sandwich in the oven would also be effective.

The resulting grilled cheese sandwich was actually pretty good. The flavors of each aspect in the assemblage of a classic French onion soup were present: onion soup, crouton, and Gruyère. The bread was buttery and crisp on the outside and the Gruyère was completely melted. However, the bread on the inside was soggy from the soup. The interior sides would be best dry-toasted to counter this. It is also important to use a good French onion soup. The one used at this instance did not have as deep of a color as one would like and the onion flavor was less intense. Time and patience are necessary to draw out the sugars from the onions, which creates that lovely dark brown color.

Yeah, I am definitely going to make this again.

McFlurry International - China 5

In China, you can call 4008-517517 and get your fix of McDonald's delivered to your door, someone else's door, or a street corner at 04:00am. Even better, avoid talking to anyone and order online in Chinese and English at 4008-517-517.cn with only a 7RMB delivery charge.

Màidāngláo (麦当劳) has a new McFlurry (麦旋风, mài xuànfēng) flavor and it is the Tiramisu McFlurry (提拉米苏麦旋风 Tílāmǐsū MàiXuànfēng) for only 10RMB. Crumbled Oreo cookies are mixed in the classic vanilla soft-serve with a thick coffee syrup swirl. At the standing McDonald's locations, you would be lucky if your McFlurry cup is filled to the halfway point, but when ordering for home delivery, the cup is almost full. The actual flavor did not fulfill its potential and could have benefited from using a vanilla cookie instead of a chocolate-based one to better capture the essence of tiramisu. This flavor combination would have been better suited for a "mocha" concept.

Here is a fun fact about the McDonald's hotline. The phone number uses a phonetic homonym. In Chinese, "517" or 五一七 (wǔ yāo qī) sounds close to 我要吃 (wǒ yào chī) or "I want to eat." "Yāo" is used instead of "yī" in oral conversation to clarify the number in a sequence of digits. So when you repeat the McDonald's phone number in Chinese, it sounds like you are saying "Wǒ yào chī, wǒ yào chī," or "I want to eat, I want to eat."