Not too long ago, I was treated to an authentic Shanghainese
dinner by the great cookbook author Florence
Lin. We dined at a restaurant in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, a
place that shall remain unnamed for reasons that will soon become obvious.
After we sat down, Mrs. Lin chatted quietly with the chef, and
in a few moments we had Nanjing
saltwater duck, braised
gluten and a warm and perfectly balanced smoked
fish appetizer arrayed in front of us.
We were soon diving into a tender
and flavorful braised
pork shank with its creamy skin, fish
with pine nuts and flash-fried pea sprouts that were bathed in nothing but fresh
oil, a sprinkle of salt and fat bulbs of browned garlic. Dainty desserts
followed, an assortment of little handmade gifts presented to us with smiles
and hot tea.
It was a revelation. But contrast this with the dinner I was
served there a few months back without a famous person beside me to impress the
chef: a lukewarm and decidedly inauthentic bowl of hot-and-sour soup, fatty and
flavorless pork in aspic and an insipid plate of poached tilapia coated with a
gummy sauce. After this sorry repast in the near-empty restaurant, the
understandably idle chef came by to complain about how tough business was.
In a way, I understood. After all, it used to be that
Americans were satisfied with pseudo Chinese food. But our growing population
of wealthy Asian immigrants, coupled with the heightened sophistication of American
diners, has changed up the game. Pseudo just doesn’t cut it anymore…. [read the
rest here on Zester Daily, including my Twelve Point Plea to Chinese
restaurants]
