Spring dinner at Ala Shanghai – they have some new specials on the menu. Beef ribs on the left, and soy beans with pickle on the right. They are both served cold. Lanny brought these out for me to try, and explained that cold beef ribs are how it’s served up in Shanghai. The coldness helps enhance a chewy texture, but they aren’t tough. Mmm, I do like chewy textures.
Pork with Tofu & Capsella soup ($7) to start. Albany John was like “What’s capsella?” And I was like, “A veggie,”. Handily, many ingredients are explained and defined (with pictures, even!) in the menu. Love Ala Shanghai’s soups – so clean & light and well flavored. Tender pork, minced cubes of tofu, and the capsella adds some nice vegetal flavor, but it’s nothing overwhelming. Kind of like spinach, really.
For dinner we split the steamed whole fish with hot peppers ($16). The peppers come in fresh & are dried in the restaurant for a few days before being used in the dish. Loved this dish – perfectly steamed, and lightly flavored with soy sauce. The chili peppers add some definite heat – Lanny warned us a bunch before ordering it that it was one of the spiciest dishes they serve, and when he saw Albany John chomping on peppers (coughing & breaking a sweat) he also mentioned that it wasn’t mandatory to eat… uh… all of the peppers on the plate. Goodness, that man loves his spicy food.

I ate the tail, hehe.
I thought of my Yeh-Yeh when I saw the winter melon with dried shrimp ($11) on the menu. It was so good! The winter melons were the star of the show, and there were so many dried shrimp! Mmm, so good.
Tail, you are mine!
Here, fishy fishy fishy!
And some medlar jelly for dessert. This worked wonders to cool down our mouths after the spicy steamed fish!