Shanghai Noodle Soup

For 3 days and 4 nights in Shanghai Mike and I were deaf-mute adventurers. Deaf-mutes because we can't understand or speak Chinese beyond the Suh (Yes), Poh (No), Shishi (Thank you") and Po Yung Shi (You're Welcome) that I learned from the meeting with our supplier; adventurers because we shied away from the big and better known restaurants and went out to the side streets of Nanjing to try quaint noodlehouses.

(Un)fortunately there was a dearth of English speakers among the waiters and shop owners; and only one shop had an English menu. I had to stand by the counter and look out at the trays the servers carried, pointing to the dishes that looked good, gesturing that I wanted to order them. (Can you picture how funny that was?)

In the end, since they were mostly noodle houses, we ended up eating a different kind of noodle soup each day. One of them is the dish pictured above. :)

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Noodle-mania rubbed on us, so we were still hung up on Shanghai cuisine and had noodle soup the night following our return.

For this I just put together pre-soaked rice noodles, some siomai, bok choy, chayote, strips of smoked squid, a swig of light soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil.