I've always looked forward to the meals on my visits to China. Not only am I a New Yorker now living in Washington, DC, but I am also a New Yorker with a parent in the New York food business--and thus an unapologetic snob when it comes to eating out. Washington may be the political capital of the United States, but no one comes to Washington for its cuisine (nor should they).

So it was with high expectations that I dragged a friend along to T8 in Shanghai, a restaurant that earned a place in Conde Nast Traveler's 2002 "Hot Tables" list of the top 50 "world's most exciting restaurants."

In many ways T8 deserves its place among its trendy New York counterparts. The restaurant is tucked away in a corner of Xintiandi, Shanghai's impressive contribution to urban nightlife. (As Shanghai locals no doubt tire of explaining, Xintiandi is a shopping and entertainment area crafted out of the buildings that, ironically, were the site of the first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party.)

The restaurant's design mixes Asian elements with those more typical of any hip, up-and-coming urban nightspot. Wooden latticed partitions dividing the eating area into intimate nooks contrast with a modern water fountain laid into slabs of slate flooring and a floor-to-ceiling glassed-in kitchen, with splashes of brightly lit tomatoes and carrots on display beside a white-uniformed sous-chef (cutting crusts off a rectangular apple or pear tart on my visit).

The menu also clearly mixed Asian and Western tastes. Pumpkin and tomato soup with spinach cream and parmesan. Scallops and sweetbreads with white truffles and chestnut dumplings. Oyster and leek pie, saffron butter, watercress salad. Duck egg yolk ravioli, with asparagus, Parma ham, and parmesan.

The dishes we eventually selected were tasty, though we stayed away from those adventurous combinations, and in some cases the different flavors worked well. The appetizer of Sichuan seared king prawns, octopus compote, and garlic cream was just what we thought it would be--the fish was fresh, cooked perfectly, and delicately seasoned. The caramelized salted salmon with green mango and longan salad with crisp shallots and salmon caviar) was excellent--the salty crust reminded me of the Chinese "salt-baked" cooking style, and the salad under the salmon was really more like a slaw of the fruit, shallots, and crisp red chilis.

For a main course, my friend ordered a somewhat bland asparagus risotto, which was made, it seemed, with longer-grain rice than one would have found in a traditional Italian version. I had "slow cooked lamb and Sichuan high pie with yellow curry coriander sauce" which I chose mainly because my curiosity got the better of me. The "high pie" turned out to be a mooncake-sized (and shaped) disk of pastry, wrapped around shredded lamb with Indian seasonings, sitting inside a tiny ring of pale yellow sauce.

Before I go any further, you should know something else about me: I can claim no training in the dos and don'ts of French cuisine--or any cuisine, for that matter. But more important, I am prejudiced against complicated food. You know the kind I mean--the kind that takes a simple cut of meat or filet of fish and piles it high with exotic plants from far-flung islands in the Pacific or the woods surrounding quaint villages in the French Alps. And then there is the compulsion some chefs seem to have to maximize the diameter of the plate, and minimize the amount of edible material, apparently to leave more room for teaspoonsful of sauce or the occasional roasted baby beet. I'd rather have a slice of real New York pizza.

So when poring over the T8 menu I found myself thinking, Why cod with mustard lentils? Why rack of lamb and fried chickpea cakes? And what was so special about the flat rice noodles with soy and ginger sauce, broccoli, and "carrot salsa"? That sounded like something I had made at home the month before (except maybe for the carrot salsa). These didn't seem like great culinary innovations I could only find in Shanghai. And, in the end, that's what I concluded about T8. I could now find the same hip, trendy restaurants in Shanghai that I could find in New York, Paris, and other great food cities.

Yet I left the restaurant longing for the Chinese restaurants that I usually seek out on my China visits--the homey places that focus on the food more than the ambience, that concentrate on serving simple dishes that may not be on the culinary cutting edge but don't hurt your wallet, either. The New York equivalent would be the corner coffee shop like the one immortalized in "Seinfeld." Or the countless small, family-run restaurants featuring food from their home towns--or home countries.

So I spent the few remaining dinners I had left in Shanghai relying on the recommendations of friends about their favorite Shanghai, or Hunan, or Indian restaurant. Because that, really, is what I think makes a great food city great. It's not the trendy, edgy places that put newfangled fillings in ravioli. It's places like the particularly good Hunan restaurant I found with the help of one of my Shanghai-based colleagues. Let me know if you need the name.

—Catherine Gelb        

---

Catherine Gelb is editor of The CBR.