Truly, madly Shanghai

Grandma's Brown-braised Pork Chops, flavored with sugar and soy sauce.[Photo/China Daily]

Shanghai

The Shanghainese love their homegrown cuisine with a passion that defies argument, and they make sure restaurants serving their favorite food stay true to the cause, as Yang Yijun reports.

It's not easy for restaurants specializing in Shanghai cuisine to satisfy the picky diners in the city. However, Xiao Nan Guo, now renamed Shanghai Min, has stood the test and developed from a tiny restaurant with only four tables into a food and beverage giant with more than 30 outlets - all within the past 24 years.

The restaurant has now launched a promotion called "I love Shanghai" by presenting 20 of its all-time best dishes in a special menu that will be in all its outlets across China.

"We have deep roots in the city, so we have always been promoting Shanghai delicacies, which is part of the city's culture," says Zhou Bin, the group's vice president.

"We are dedicated to preserving the authentic flavors and have also made slight changes according to the preferences of the people today," he says.

Chinese menus rarely feature salads, but in Shanghai, a city well known for absorbing different cultures, there are exceptions. The organic vegetable salad in Xiao Nan Guo has been its signature dish for more than 20 years. According to Zhou Bin, more than a million platters of vegetable salad have been sold.

In fact, the ingredients are common ones like lettuce and cherry tomatoes, but it is the dressing that makes the difference. It's refreshing but creamy, and more Chinese in flavor. It seems that sesame oil is added to the unique sauce, but the other ingredients are kept secret.

"Only the master chef who created the dish knows the exact ingredients," says Chen Ziyan from Xiao Nan Guo, "Once, I asked him to reveal the secret, but as you can imagine, I got a definite 'No'."

Shanghai cuisine is famous for its use of sugar in combination with soy sauce. This classic flavoring appears in yet another of the restaurant's signature dish called Grandma's Brown-braised Pork Chops. The size of each chop and even the proportion of lean meat and fat are strictly controlled to ensure that the meat is tender and not too oily.

Another popular ingredient loved by Shanghainese grandmothers is beancurd sheets tied into knots. These are stewed together with the pork chops and the bland beancurd soaks up all the rich flavors of the meat and becomes just as delicious.

After the main dishes, do remember to try one of Shanghai's favorite snacks, noodles mixed with scallion, oil and soy sauce.

The dish also showcases the magic combination of sugar and soy sauce that turns the noodles from plain Jane to simply delicious.

Some other dishes on offer are chicken soup with beancurd sheet knots, the rare and seasonal steamed hilsa herring and the classic Shanghainese steamed soup dumplings with crab roe, or xiaolongbao.

Diners get a complimentary dish for every three ordered from the special menu.

They will also get a chance to win one of 10 iPads during the promotion.