Shanghai Revisited

On a Saturday evening on the autumn equinox,there was a festive air in Sydney's little Shanghai. I had not been there for months, and yet it was all familiar to me, the parade of brightly lit restaurants and cafes packed with engaged diners and busy staff. Lunar New Year and Valentines were over, but Ching Ming, a day of ancestral worship, was coming in two weeks' time. The night air was not cold and the day had been hot.

We expected, and looked forward to, the dumplings with hot soup steamed inside with pork meat balls. This time the pastry was thin and melted nicely into the inner ingredients. The cook must have been happy that day making these - it showed in the results. Prawns lightly sauteed and eaten with a dash of chili oil turned out to be appetising. We did not order noodles but relied on the basics - steamed white rice. The rice blended better with the plain looking salted duck cuts, a speciality of the central Chinese coast.

Alex remarked that the better ingredients available in Australia - and the fact that a generation of older chefs in Shanghai had been lost to past political turmoil and emigration - had contributed to his observation that Shanghai food tasted even better here than in its original birth place. For example, the pickled stir-fried vegetable slices reminded me more of Japanese food than my perceptions of Chinese, but when using Australian produce, moved me to another dimension in the mouth.

Chicken giblets, pig ears and duck tongues were cooked in variety of ways and displayed at the entrance, where waiting customers could stare longingly at such dishes. My eyes were drawn to the roast duck - the Shanghai version looked more dry but still delicious, the culinary creation achieved in a very different way from its northern and southern competing cuisines in Beijing and Guangzhou.

We were surrounded by fair skinned diners with sharp features and contrasting dark eyebrows, eyes and hair. Shanghai has a language of its own, apart from Mandarin, and its locals also look slightly different from southern Chinese. They can be the most commercial-minded people in the variety that is China. As Shanghai is not the national capital, perhaps its denizens and culture have the instinctive hunger to be the best, just like New York to Washington D.C., or Milan to Rome.

Alessandro and the Ricotta Cheesecake

It was a feast not just for the palate, but also for the eyes. I could sense the texture of freshly made Peppes pasta, be it chili linguine or spinach flavoured. The range of biscottis, formaggis and hand made Colefax chocolates overwhelmed my attention. Easter is coming - and there were giant bunnies, lolly eggshells and hot cross buns. The rich aroma of freshly baked stuff from ovens reminded me of continental holidays. The collective feel of Saturday morning groups shopping and sharing similar passions brought me home to what is meant as one family and village.

I had previously frequented Haberfield only for dinner evenings, often wondering what was behind the closed doors of cafes, grocery outlets and fruit shops. Having the opportunity to visit it in the daytime was an eye opener. Fresh green olives beamed in their colour. The vodka laced pasta at La Grotta offered an agreeable orange coloured sauce that hinted of rose and savoury delight. We did not go check out the butcher Mario's, due to lack of time, or maybe the convenience of being enthralled in a circle of magical shops so close to each other, near the junction of Dalhousie and Ramsay Streets, was too difficult to get out of! Gelato after lunch on a summery day sounded logical and I had hazelnut flavoured richness - after deciding not to go for some curious egg based choice.

If there was one hall mark moment to illustrate that day, it was chatting with Alessandro about the choice of cakes in the family-homely outlet that he works - Sulfaro. With an earnest face and two super friendly eyes, he took me through the fresh offerings available - and I settled for the ricotta cheesecake. A very good choice it turned out to be, for later at a house party that evening, it was accepted very well. I found it not too sweet, with just the right texture, not too soft and just leaving a superb after taste in the mouth. There were queues in this shop, and everyone else seemed to know what they were coming here for.

We had started with a cuppa at the Espresso Galleria - that was good, especially for me having driven up from Wollongong. I landed up giving up my resistance to get two packets of Itorroncini Sperlari - check it out. At Zafettis, which specialises in unique products on its shelves, I could not go past the pickled red chillies made in Italy. Good to eat with the Cantonese rice noodles called hor fun - what a fusion idea. I could not leave the Little General olive oil bottle, looking so smart but alone, on the shelf of another shop - I rescued it.

The next afternoon, whilst catching a Rockdale Musical Society presentation of Miss Saigon, I had urges of living in a village where everybody knows my name. The stage demonstrated the pangs of being caught between two cultures, of how apparently momentary decisions can haunt individuals many years later and of how war can wreck personal lives. I thought, how nice it was on that Saturday afternoon in Haberfield, for me and my friends, to be able to absorb ourselves peacefully in apparently another culture - but one that shares so many comparable and similar passions for family, food and fraternity. Thanks Chris, Charmaine, Cindy for walking the route with me. I especially recall when Ashleigh and Catlin were with me in the bread shop queue, patiently waiting for me in my eagerness to get the hot cross buns - that was wonderful, with each of us taking in the character of the bakery, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Caught In The Act

Image Credits K H and R L

Delight In the Detail

While I was waiting in line at the Big W checkout aisle, I noticed various little packs of what supermarkets think we need, whether for travel or everyday use. They ranged from mints, napkins, moisturiser and toiletries to toothpaste, all packaged in unassuming white box packets. I chose the instant shoe shine.

I had the opportunity to attend a stage performance skilfully displaying a blend of martial arts, dramatic acting and ballet. It was unusual but emphasised to me the commonality in physical expression and exertion in the creative arts.

Most pleasant for me was unexpectedly catching up with someone whom I can be just be myself - no appointments needed. Each of us was in transit at a fast food takeaway between things to do, but I guess both of us appreciated the chat and break from the routine and the list of have-to-dos!

What fed my inner soul was cruising through early Sunday morning with saved versions of episodes of the sitcoms Two and A Half Men and the Big Bang Theory. I wish there was rain dripping outside the lounge doors, but I realised that I already had that the weekend before.

I made my attempt at a a fusion meal with rice noodles, Italian meat balls, white button mushrooms and Asian stock soup. It was tasty!

I was earnestly looking for household cleaning stuff and wound up with a couple of pretty flowering chrysanthemum pots. I went to collect my order for one of Shaun Tan's artistic creations, The Arrival, and also stumbled into a Deepak Chopra book.

I felt a huge sigh of relief after I finally had my hair shaped after weeks of self-diversion and neglect. Then on the way home at dusk, I saw a shop called Pet Style, just before the northern side of the Tom Ugly Bridge.

I had lunch of goat curry cooked by a Vietnamese cafe and felt revitalised while going through various emotions watching the Danny Boyle movie, Slumdog Millionaire. A childhood of actually seeing Bollywood movies did greatly prepare me to deeply appreciate the nuances and delights of this insightful film.

Contrasts of greater Sydney

In the heart of what is essentially Sydney city, twenty somethings and retired couples took it easy late on Sunday afternoon, sipping coffee, browsing through the Sunday papers, making small conversation or just staring into each other's eyes. Never mind if the grounds were wet from passing showers throughout most of the day.
Vespas and like-minded motorbike models were neatly parked in front of shaven-headed men with big eyes and almost similar body hugging t-shirts. The women could be fans of the book Sex and The City, but in reality perhaps have more complex realities than anyone can imagine.

The service was not exactly top notch at this Challis Street cafe. There seemed to be a dearth of open coffee places in Potts Point. The Fratelli Fresh was lively - and so was a rather trendy Woolworths store along the main street. We sat in alfresco dining quarters where a car was driven to neatly park literally straight behind our backs. Perhaps after what we saw in front of a terrace in another part of Sydney city - when the last vestiges of the Southern Cross Drive met Flinders Street - we appreciated this precise and polite parking.

Earlier in the afternoon, we saw how bold and recklessly a man parked in a spot obviously too small for his Holden. He blatantly nudged the stationary vehicle behind by pushing it surely with the back of his car, and then did it again. I understand that this is done on Paris or New York cbd streets in the late hours of night, when one needs to park the car and urgently crash in bed - but this was inner Sydney on a Sunday afternoon.

For lunch, we had plunged into the exotic chaos and dynamics of street markets reminiscent of another place, another time. I reckoned there could have been a thousand and one things on sale - mangosteens, freshly cooked food, red cherries, kitchen ware, artificial flowers, longans, all types of gourds, various pancakes, steaming buns, pastries, cakes,recently made rice and egg noodles, bean sprouts, peaches, durians, multi-hued jellies and more. Shoppers were placed shoulder and shoulder, or back to back, as they passed by each other in narrow arcades.

The mung bean noodles I had were thoroughly mixed with savoury sauces and garnished with red chili cuts. It was expected to have difficulty to park the car but we found a spot on the top floor of the multi-storey car park. Cabramatta has a reputation in any angle you see it. There was no alfresco coffee sipping place in sight, and almost everyone there wanted to finish their business and move on. There were queues of people and vehicles. Service was quick and crowded. And even if space was really tight, I have not encountered a driver rudely pushing back another car to make way for his. Or maybe not yet.