Shanghai Cocktales: A Memoir by Tom Olden

Author:Tom Olden [Olden, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

Darkness had set upon the city, and we were more or less lost. Not because we didn’t know where we were, but because we didn’t know where to go. Like good tourists, we had followed the Lonely Planet Bible, and spent the last hour looking for a bar called Lucy’s, which was supposed to be on Renhe Lu 298—but it had either never existed, or it was closed down. The window at that address was now displaying the latest in Chinese women’s fashion.

“Well, the book’s not completely new,” I said with an apologetic grimace as we stared at the store front and then up and down Renhe Lu. There were no visible bars or restaurants in sight. The most positive thing about the situation was that it was not raining.

“OK. So what’s up, Marco Polo? Whaddewedonow?” Parviz chortled.

“Well. We can always go to LouWaiLou?” I suggested. “We have the address and know it’s a proper place. It’s been open for more than a hundred and forty years, so they got to do something right?!”

Parviz glanced at his shoes for a moment before he looked up with a thin smile. “OK, but if it’s closed, then we’ll hit KFC. I’m starving.”

“I’m sure it’s open, dude. Let’s grab a cab.”

The waiter opened the heavy decorated door to the old, elegant restaurant, located next to the West Lake. After a short bow, he said in fairly well pronounced English. “Waelcum to LouWaiLou. Zoo parson?”

I nodded. “Yes. Please.”

“Tis way, sir,” he replied and led us up the winding staircase to the second floor, where almost all tables were occupied with diners. Elegant chandeliers lit the room—not too bright and not too dim—it was just perfect. A huge, intricately patterned carpet covered the floor from wall-to-wall. This was not a place where baijiu[*] was drunk from the bottle or cigarettes were snuffed under the table. It was impressive. And in a low voice, I told Parviz that even foreign dignitaries made a point of visiting the restaurant when they were in town. Uh-humm. If only the food followed the same high standards, then our Christmas dinner would be saved.

And saved it was. After a couple of appetizers, a bowl of corn soup and two of the local delicacies, Dongpo Pork and Beggar’s Chicken, we sat ruminating with a cup of decent coffee while sipping the last of the sweet, rice wine from Shaoxing.

The pork had consisted of fine layers of thinly stripped pig skin and pulled tenderloin, braised in rice wine and served in a thick, burgundy-colored sweet sauce. Tender as butter, it was unlike anything we had ever had before.

As the waitress had explained, the chicken was first filled with hung pork and was then wrapped in a thick layer of lotus leaves and soaked in rice wine. After an unknown amount of time, the bird was swathed in leftover mud from the bottom of a wine barrel and baked until tender.

A gastronomical experience with an unmistakable flavor of lotus and China, but why it was called Beggar’s Chicken, we could not quite understand.

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