I was briefly in China (in and near Shanghai), and tried to eat a little bit of everything… but nothing really stood out. Partly, I like the Shanghai style of food less (a lot of sweet sauces and heavy, oily food). Mostly, I think I just wasn’t eating at the right places, and was eating some meals at or near hotels and didn’t have much time to explore. Oh well, I’ll have to go back with some actual restaurant research.
My one new-to-me find was dragon fruit ( pitaya), the red-skinned fruit with black seeds in white flesh below– a mild but pleasant and not-too-sweet flavor and texture.
I love soup dumplings (xiao long bao) – meat-filled dumplings that also have some aspic/meat stock that melts into gelatin/broth during cooking. However, the ones I had in a hotel restaurant were nothing special– certainly worse than the ones at Shanghai Dumpling King in San Francisco.
Hotel breakfasts more in the Western direction:
