Halal restaurants you can find in Shanghai, China

Are you one of those who always bring an extra pack of instant noodles just so you won't go hungry without food in China? Here's a good news, there's an easier way to locate the nearest Halal restaurant.

Xinbada Xinjiang Restaurant

Located in Pudong area, one block away from 1st Yaohan Building in Zhangyang road. The building is actually a food hall. This restaurant is situated on the 3rd floor. It serves Xinjiang food. The Xinjiang Big Plate chicken taste nice, better than the one I tried in Guangzhou before. However the price here is quite expensive. The Xinjiang Big Plate itself costs about RMB68.

Beef Noodle shop near Yuyuan Garden

Actually I don’t know the exact name of this stall since it’s written in Chinese. Located just a few minutes away from Yuyuan Garden area and the mosque, this is just a small stall and that specialises in beef noodle. The menu is written in Chinese, but they have a wall showing the photos so I just ordered via the photos. I did not try the beef noodle here, but I tried the friend lamb plus the fried rice. The lamb costs RMB40 and is in quite a big serving.

Pleasant Smill Beef Noodle

I found this shop by coincident while walking from Nanjing road towards the Bund area. This shop doesn’t have any photos on it’s wall and the menu is purely written in Chinese. The beef noodle here is marvellous and it only costs RMB10 per bowl. Oh, they don’t serve any drinks here, so you might need to get your drinks elsewhere after the meal.

Qian Wei Ramen

This shop is situated in front of Radison Blu hotel in Pudong. It is just 5 minutes walk from the IBIS Lianyang hotel, the place I stayed at. It serves Xinjiang food. The lamb shashlik here is delicious. We also ordered the fried rice plus some ginger beef. Price is reasonable. One lamb shashlik cost only RMB3.

See more: 5 noodle dishes you must try in Shanghai, China

Source: tripzilla

What you need to know about eating Tempura

Of the many popular Japanese dishes out there, one that stands out is tempura - but what exactly is tempura? How do you eat it? When you come to Japan, you're sure to want to try it, so let's take a closer look at tempura.

Source The spruce eats

Tempura is the name for dishes that have been dipped in a mixture of cold water, flour and egg then fried in oil. Because there are eggs in the mixture, some might assume that tempura are like fritters, where the egg whites are whipped, but this is not the case.

The ingredients vary by the season, but in general edible plants, vegetables, shrimp, squid, Japanese whiting, and other types of seafood are used in tempura.

Source andrewzimmern.com

Though tempura is considered a model of Japanese cooking, the root of the word "tempura" is theorized to have come from the Portuguese "tempero" (cooking) or Spanish "templo" (temple) which spread to Japan via foreign missionaries. Tempura came through Japan during the Edo era, where "fast, cheap, delicious" fast foods for the masses became popular.

Tempura flavoring is up to you

Tempura is most commonly eaten with 'ten-tsuyu' - a dipping sauce made from dashi soup stock, soy sauce, and mirin (sweet rice wine). It's also quite common to add grated ginger or grated Japanese daikon radish to ten-tsuyu; both grated ginger and daikon radish add a refreshing edge to deep fried foods.

Homemade Japanese Tempura Batter for Shrimp, Chicken, Fish, Vegetable
Source How daily

Other than ten-tsuyu, in order to really taste the basic ingredients of the dish, tempura may be eaten with just a sprinkling of salt. Recently flavored salts have become popular, such as matcha salt (salt with green tea powder mixed in), curry salt (salt with curry spices), even novel flavors such as yuzu citrus peel or powdered Japanese pepper salts.

And, in small amounts, citrus juices squeezed from lemons or sudachi (similar to a lime) are also great with tempura. There are some people who eat tempura with just soy sauce, Worchester sauce... The flavoring choice is entirely up to you. Half the fun of eating tempura is trying different patterns and matching the ingredients to the best flavors.

The Simple Tempura Menu

While you can eat tempura by itself, there are many other dishes which include tempura in them.

A bowl of rice with tempura - Source Chopstick Chronicles

Ten-don is a bowl of rice with tempura on top that has had a sauce of concentrated soy sauce, dashi and mirin poured over it; this is a popular type of donburi (*1) dish. Donburi with the tempura mixed into half-scrambled eggs are also popular.

"Ten soba", "ten udon" are dishes where tempura rests on top of thin buckwheat noodles (soba) or on thick flour noodles (udon). "Ten musu" are shrimp tempura that have been wrapped in onigiri (*2), allowing you to enjoy rice and tempura at the same time.

Read more: Get to know about Wagashi, the Japanese traditional sweets

Source Sakanaya - Champaign

Paired with the staples of rice or noodles as a side dish or on its own, tempura is a simple but somewhat fancy dish that is commonly enjoyed for lunch by the Japanese.

*1 Donburi: one dish Japanese meal featuring rice underneath a variety of toppings; the 'don' or porcelain bowl is typically bigger than the usual rice-only bowl.
*2 Onigiri: cooked white rice with a filling, shaped into a tube or a triangle which may or may not be wrapped with roasted seaweed on the outside.

Table manner when eating Tempura

When eating tempura at a restaurant, one of the most important things to keep in mind is the order of eating each piece. When several pieces of tempura are included on one plate, it is standard for the lighter-types (vegetables, shrimp, Japanese whiting) to be placed in front of the heavier-types (such as anago eel). It is recommended to eat the tempura from the front toward the back, as it's believed that the flavors will grow deeper in this manner.

Source The Ranting Panda

If you would like to try something a bit more luxurious, you might like to visit a tempura shop with a counter where the chef prepares the dishes one by one, right before your eyes; you can eat the dishes while they are piping hot too. At this sort of shop, however, it is also very important to keep an eye on when you order and eat each piece.

Tempura is at its most delicious when it is freshly made. No matter how fresh the ingredients are, once tempura has become cold, the crispiness of the batter is lost, so please make sure to enjoy it while it's hot.

Read more: Savor the best of Japanese beef with these dishes

Source matcha-jp

The tasty dishes made from tofu in China

Tofu, also known as bean curd, is a food of Chinese origin. It is made from soy milk, water and a curdling agent. The production of tofu from soy milk is similar to that of producing cheese from milk. It is made by coagulating soy milk, then pressing the resulting curds into blocks.

There is a wide variety of tofu, which can be split into two main categories as fresh tofu produced directly from soy milk, and processed tofu processed in some way from fresh tofu.

Stinky Tofu 

Image: Josephine Lim

This smelly tofu is a kind of snack with a strong odor described as rotten or fecal. Blocks of soft tofu are fermented in a unique brine, and then fried till the rind becomes crisp, and are usually served with sweet sauce, soy sauce or spicy sauce.

Mapo Tofu

Mapo tofu is a Sichuan specialty, typically made with tofu, various aromatics, oil, broth, and beef. The last two ingredients are meaty, sure, but do they have to be? You can make a vegan version that is just as satisfying. The key adaptations are replacing the meat-based broth with a soy-and-mushroom concoction and subbing a mix of fresh and dried mushrooms for the beef.

Dried Tofu 

This extra firm tofu contains the least amount of moisture of all fresh tofu. It is usually pressed very flat and sliced into long strings, which look like loose cooked noodles, and can be served cold or stir-fried.

Read more: 5 noodle dishes you must try in Shanghai, China

Silken Tofu

Silken tofu is the softest type of tofu. Some are so soft they crumble as soon as they make contact with chopsticks. It is by far my favorite type because of the texture and subtle sweet and nutty flavor.

Source Internet