LA cuisine queen finds 'street food' heaven in Shanghai
By David Maguire |
April 7, 2013, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
HAILED as a women who deserves an Emmy for energy, LA cuisine queen Susan Feniger had little time to absorb Shanghai's vibe as she rushed from the airport to her nighttime gig at Waldorf Astoria on The Bund. As the cream of Shanghai's and California's tourism industries mingled outside the ballroom, Feniger then held court with a cooking demonstration and guests sampled California wine from various importer's stalls.
Dressed in a lime green chef's outfit, yellow apron and camouflage-patterned hair tie, she was a blur of motion producing signature hors d'oeuvres popular in her restaurants in Los Angeles.
Feniger was one of the celebrity guests brought in by Visit California to help promote the US state's tourism attributes late last year.
But the visit meant more to her than the plush Waldorf Astoria, the praise for her food and the thrill of being in Shanghai, and China, for the first time in a full, professional life that includes being hailed as single-handedly changing LA's culinary landscape.
Feniger wanted to "hit the streets" to get a real feel and taste for Shanghai food as it was served "on the street." So, for the next three days she scoured down alleyways and hunted through neighborhoods, looking for unique taste sensations she could serve in her LA restaurant STREET.
"My time was totally spent eating on the street. The food blew me away," she said in an interview last week.
"What I found so incredible was you walk through a city so sophisticated, built up and modern, yet you can still roam the streets and go to neighborhoods that have such interesting street food."
Ticking off the culinary gems found on her unchartered discovery tour, the enthusiastic fifty-something's unbridled passion for food is infectious.
"From a single vendor in an early morning market, to late night, falling upon a vendor and his family selling freshly made warm soy milk with crispy 'youtiao' that you can have sweet with sugar or salty with pickles.
"Then we tucked into sticky rice in a little baggie, served with a bowl of warm soy - I got the salty one - and the milk had a 'youtiao' broken up in it, with pickles, cilantro and chili oil.
"Then we walked down the street (it's 4:30am) where we tasted another dish, a rice flour pancake cooked over a makeshift steamer. We brought both of these (recipes) back to serve at STREET for brunch at Chinese New Year!"
Youtiao, fried dough stick, is a typical Chinese breakfast snack.
All along the way, Feniger commented, the people were "absolutely warm, caring, generous in spirit, sharing their food, their lives."
She gets a thrill from visiting a city for the first time and just walking the streets. That's how she "understands the culture in a way that you can't get from a cookbook. You meet the people, hear their stories through their food."
Declaring Shanghai's street food "inspired and inspirational," Feniger got great ideas and learned new dishes, taking notes and shooting film to absorb as much as she could.
"You begin to see the dishes totally differently because you are seeing them through someone else. Through their lives, their stories, their culture and you too become immersed in the wonders of it," she said.
"I never know what I'll find, but when you travel somewhere new you continually find food done in a new way, or dishes you've never seen, or the simplicity of things that are incredibly complex." This restaurateur and foodie of significant US renown - co-author of five cookbooks, 400 episodes of the Food Network's TV series "Too Hot Tamales" and its spin-offs, and a stint on "Top Chef Masters" - became so enamored of her Shanghai street cuisine odyssey that she ate in only one restaurant during the entire visit.
Her favorite outlet was run by a woman and her son behind an apartment complex. It was a little outdoor cafe with a couple of tables and a canopy hung from the apartment window.
"She was making the most delicious soup with dumplings she was preparing (on the spot). One of my faves that we brought back (to make in LA) was a savory sticky rice with pork and mushrooms that was wrapped in a won ton skin then steamed. Basically you just walked by, picked one up and it was your morning walk-to-school snack!"
As "street food" is the core of her cuisine style in Los Angeles, Feniger found great empathy with the vendors she met in Shanghai.
"I totally relate in a very big way to each and every outlet, working hard to make a dish they love, wanting people to eat, and make a living at it. It's about passion, sharing, about livelihood! This I completely get and connect to."
Apart from the many individual dish ideas Feniger adopted to include on her STREET menu, a direct outcome of the visit was a Shanghai-inspired Chinese New Year Dim Sum Brunch that was wildly popular with her customers.
"People were absolutely blown away," she said. But there's more.
"On our new brunch menu we will add the sticky savory rice in the dumpling, and a rice pancake that we tweaked with a black sesame syrup and coconut milk."
Beyond the street vendors, Feniger got a glimpse on her all-hours discovery tour of a culture she had never known, an insight into the people for whom the street food is made.
"One early morning we walked through this huge park where people of all ages, young and old, were singing, practicing ballroom dancing, playing badminton, drinking tea, meditating, and the list goes on.
"A group of elderly people singing a traditional Chinese song insisted I join in and then sang 'Jingle Bells' to me. They had no idea who I was, why I was there ... they just welcomed me into their world. The warmth was overwhelming."
Feniger can't wait to come back and continue her exploration of Shanghai food culture. "I mean three days. Eating from 4:30am to 5pm, the next day 7am to 7pm and the next day from 8am to 7pm. Not near enough exploring and eating. I'm ready."
Dressed in a lime green chef's outfit, yellow apron and camouflage-patterned hair tie, she was a blur of motion producing signature hors d'oeuvres popular in her restaurants in Los Angeles.
Feniger was one of the celebrity guests brought in by Visit California to help promote the US state's tourism attributes late last year.
But the visit meant more to her than the plush Waldorf Astoria, the praise for her food and the thrill of being in Shanghai, and China, for the first time in a full, professional life that includes being hailed as single-handedly changing LA's culinary landscape.
Feniger wanted to "hit the streets" to get a real feel and taste for Shanghai food as it was served "on the street." So, for the next three days she scoured down alleyways and hunted through neighborhoods, looking for unique taste sensations she could serve in her LA restaurant STREET.
"My time was totally spent eating on the street. The food blew me away," she said in an interview last week.
"What I found so incredible was you walk through a city so sophisticated, built up and modern, yet you can still roam the streets and go to neighborhoods that have such interesting street food."
Ticking off the culinary gems found on her unchartered discovery tour, the enthusiastic fifty-something's unbridled passion for food is infectious.
"From a single vendor in an early morning market, to late night, falling upon a vendor and his family selling freshly made warm soy milk with crispy 'youtiao' that you can have sweet with sugar or salty with pickles.
"Then we tucked into sticky rice in a little baggie, served with a bowl of warm soy - I got the salty one - and the milk had a 'youtiao' broken up in it, with pickles, cilantro and chili oil.
"Then we walked down the street (it's 4:30am) where we tasted another dish, a rice flour pancake cooked over a makeshift steamer. We brought both of these (recipes) back to serve at STREET for brunch at Chinese New Year!"
Youtiao, fried dough stick, is a typical Chinese breakfast snack.
All along the way, Feniger commented, the people were "absolutely warm, caring, generous in spirit, sharing their food, their lives."
She gets a thrill from visiting a city for the first time and just walking the streets. That's how she "understands the culture in a way that you can't get from a cookbook. You meet the people, hear their stories through their food."
Declaring Shanghai's street food "inspired and inspirational," Feniger got great ideas and learned new dishes, taking notes and shooting film to absorb as much as she could.
"You begin to see the dishes totally differently because you are seeing them through someone else. Through their lives, their stories, their culture and you too become immersed in the wonders of it," she said.
"I never know what I'll find, but when you travel somewhere new you continually find food done in a new way, or dishes you've never seen, or the simplicity of things that are incredibly complex." This restaurateur and foodie of significant US renown - co-author of five cookbooks, 400 episodes of the Food Network's TV series "Too Hot Tamales" and its spin-offs, and a stint on "Top Chef Masters" - became so enamored of her Shanghai street cuisine odyssey that she ate in only one restaurant during the entire visit.
Her favorite outlet was run by a woman and her son behind an apartment complex. It was a little outdoor cafe with a couple of tables and a canopy hung from the apartment window.
"She was making the most delicious soup with dumplings she was preparing (on the spot). One of my faves that we brought back (to make in LA) was a savory sticky rice with pork and mushrooms that was wrapped in a won ton skin then steamed. Basically you just walked by, picked one up and it was your morning walk-to-school snack!"
As "street food" is the core of her cuisine style in Los Angeles, Feniger found great empathy with the vendors she met in Shanghai.
"I totally relate in a very big way to each and every outlet, working hard to make a dish they love, wanting people to eat, and make a living at it. It's about passion, sharing, about livelihood! This I completely get and connect to."
Apart from the many individual dish ideas Feniger adopted to include on her STREET menu, a direct outcome of the visit was a Shanghai-inspired Chinese New Year Dim Sum Brunch that was wildly popular with her customers.
"People were absolutely blown away," she said. But there's more.
"On our new brunch menu we will add the sticky savory rice in the dumpling, and a rice pancake that we tweaked with a black sesame syrup and coconut milk."
Beyond the street vendors, Feniger got a glimpse on her all-hours discovery tour of a culture she had never known, an insight into the people for whom the street food is made.
"One early morning we walked through this huge park where people of all ages, young and old, were singing, practicing ballroom dancing, playing badminton, drinking tea, meditating, and the list goes on.
"A group of elderly people singing a traditional Chinese song insisted I join in and then sang 'Jingle Bells' to me. They had no idea who I was, why I was there ... they just welcomed me into their world. The warmth was overwhelming."
Feniger can't wait to come back and continue her exploration of Shanghai food culture. "I mean three days. Eating from 4:30am to 5pm, the next day 7am to 7pm and the next day from 8am to 7pm. Not near enough exploring and eating. I'm ready."
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