This new brewpub, situated out in Minhang district just across the street from the Shanghai Racquet Club and Rancho Santa Fe, is the first to get the formula right in Shanghai. There are already reliable versions of the Munich-styled beer hall (Paulaner and Castle Oktober come to mind). But in North America they’ve tweaked the Euro-formula, from the beers down to the food. And this adaptation is what you’ll find at the Boxing Cat.

First, it’s cozy instead of cavernous. Second, the menu is a sort of panamerican party; they serve everything from carnita quesadillas to excellent bite-sized burgers with altbier cheese sauce to fried oyster po’ boys with spicy slaw. And finally, the beer is brewed in an New World style.

I’m not sure if its kosher to say this about beer, but I will for the uninitiated: What’s true about American wine is generally true about American-styled beers. They tend to have higher alcohol, and are made in an aggressive style with lots of fruity hops and a good deal of bitterness. They can also potentially offend Old World palates. If you can grasp the difference between Bordeaux and Napa, and you prefer the chewy, fruity Cabernet over its more austere predecessor, than you'll probably prefer a Sierra Nevada over a Speckled Hen. Good ol boy brewmaster Gary Heyne (who will explain all this better to you than I can) has created three brews at the moment: A mellow dark beer (Midland Mild), an aromatically bitter Altbier (my favorite) and a rich, fruity Pilsener (also delicious). They’re all better than just about anything else coming out of a tap in town.

Kelley Lee is behind the kitchen, and has crafted a menu that pairs really well with the beers but transcends mere pub grub. It’s smart, satisfying food.

The Boxing Cat Brewery - 453 Jinfeng Rd near Baole Lu, 6221-9661. Take down this number and call when you’re in the taxi – chances are your driver will have a better knowledge of quantum physics than this part of Shanghai.

Whoa.

The other op-ed in today's Shanghai Daily is even more preposterous. But I'm trying to avoid politically inflammatory material these days. Here's something for your enjoyment that is both food related and utterly ridiculous, so I'm gonna share!

Enjoy columnist Wang Yong's oddly-phrased attempt to explain why middle-aged women totally spoil his appetite, but are just fine in the more appropriate role of improving his aim. 

Silent waitresses spoil food paradise but lady janitors are a joy
Created: 2008-4-14
Author:Wang Yong


IT'S said, or rather demonstrated, that a Taurus has a natural predilection for delicious food. I'm a Taurus, although my mother is not quite sure on exactly which date in May I was born.

Anyway, I'm a Taurus. Hi Shanghai, I've come, I've seen, I've savored, and I've smelled ?? a rat.

Food in Shanghai is great, so how do I come to smell a rat in this capital of food? Not food poison, don't worry.

It's in the distracted eyes and downturned mouths that forever mark many middle-aged waitresses who serve at a counter in such famous restaurants as Wang Jia Sha that sell wondrous steamed buns stuffed with powdered crab.

In fact, the Wang Jia Sha buns both look and taste great, tempting me now and then. But several bouts of talk with implacably indifferent wait staff have turned my stomach: That is the last place I'll go to make my stomach happy.

Each and every time I asked a middle-aged waitress if there were hot buns, I got not just a cold shoulder but a look of disdain.

These women barely move or speak unless you tell them exactly what you want. If you ask any question before you buy, all you get in return is dead silence and a cold glance darting from the corners of their eyes.

Now that I seldom patronize Wang Jia Sha, I've found another gourmet restaurant nearby - Lu Yang Cun. It's also on Nanjing Road W.

Lu Yang Cun buns are no less delicious than Wang Jia Sha's, so I went there.

My excitement didn't last long. Soon I smelled a rat there as well.

The middle-aged waitressess there not only give you a blank stare just like their sisters in Wang Jia Sha, they also don't keep an orderly queue. They endorse line-jumping.

The examples of Lu Yang Cun and Wang Jia Sha shows that middle-aged women are powerful, not in the sense that they can raise half of the sky, but in the sense that they ruin my appetite.

Not all middle-aged women in Shanghai's service industry are that lousy, though. Women janitors in the city's toilets surely qualify as model workers.

They work almost around the clock, they never complain. They clean the toilets even when a man is in the toilet room.

Sometimes these lovely women chat with you when you're answering the call of nature.

These women janitors are very diligent. One day a middle-aged woman janitor shouted at me: "A step closer to the urinal!"

I was never yelled at like this in my 20 years' in Beijing. Shanghai is such a lovely city - if you're not a Taurus gourmet.

Don St Pierre of ASC Wines, along with ASC's VP of Logistics, Carrie Xuan, have been released by China Customs. Below is a press release from Don himself, who is surely happy to be home, probably with a glass of wine by his side.  It's good to see  ASC, a company that has great things for wine in China, intact, and Don and Carrie back to work.

In closing, let's hope that this developing inquiry doesn't affect the supply chain, or make us pay anymore for the stuff than we already do.

Shanghai is largely saturated by large whiskey brands like Chivas, Dewar’s and Johnny Walker, brands which are hard to escape even if you don’t drink the stuff. And while it’s fine to tilt a bottle of Red Label into glass pitcher filled with ice and then drown all that brown booze in a tide of green tea or cola, it’s not a very distinctive drink all on its own. I love a good scotch now and then, and if it weren’t 10am I might just pour myself a briny sniff of Ardbeg to get in the spirit of things. But it is, and if I did, that would be alarming.

I’m not alone in my love of a good single malt. But my favorite bar to dip into whiskies, Constellation (on Xinle Lu) has been packed to capacity of late. Each time I go it gets louder and smokier – and while its tuxedoed tenders and black lit interiors once seemed dowdy, now it’s become a haunt of Shanghai scenesters. Oh well.

Yesterday, while walking my dog across the street from the park he’s not allowed to walk in (he likes this terrarium effect, I do too) we stumbled across a new pub. It’s called The Park Tavern, and it’s opposite Xujiahui Park on Hengshan Lu, just before it dips under that quartet of unsightly malls and rudely spits you out in Xujiahui.

I like the beer and scotch selection at the Park Tavern. They’ve got Beamish, Boddington’s, Stella, Heineken and Tiger on tap, along with a slew of bottled beers as well. But what grabbed my attention was their scotch: Caol Ila, Aberlour, Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Highland Park and several more are available here. There’s a large outdoor patio as well, and the interior is clean if a little bland for this sort of place. Go season it.

The Park Tavern – 840 Hengshan Lu, 5465 9312.

Breakfast of Champions.

Tommes (once incorrectly referred to here as Thomas), the chef who greatly improved the kitchen at Enoteca, is moving on. He will be Stefan Stiller’s sous chef at his new restaurant opening this spring.

I just spoke to Eduardo Vargas, who will be opening a new restaurant just beside Azul/Viva in the coming month or so. Eduardo’s new one will serve standout Southeast Asian dishes from places like Laos, Cambodia and Bali – not Southeast Asian fusion but authentic representations of dishes from across the region.

Finally, local blog Shanghaiist recently published a piece that described their favorite places to eat out in town. I always enjoy playing this game with people who like eating (or reading about it) and so I click-clicked. And, to my horror, I found out that Wing Ling Soh, a writer there, decided to dangle a carrot in front of our very noses. Soh likes eating at a Gujurati thali "sort of restaurant" somewhere in Pudong, in someone’s house, and won’t tell us where. I find this not only portentous but really tempting.

Mark my words, Wee Ling Soh: I will find your Gujurati clubhouse, and cackle from the depths of my gullet as they sloppily spill lentils, over and over, into so many stainless steel bowls!

((below is an image of the last thali (sort of like a cheap, serviced buffet) I ate in India many moons ago))

Stumbled across this in a rather clumsily titled article about Italian food:

"Abu Markhyyeh, 41, a Jordanian, the owner of the pizzeria Da Willy, has 11 restaurants in Milan, 4 in Jordan, 2 in Cyprus and franchises in Dubai, Beirut, Sharm el Sheik in Egypt and in Shanghai. Despite his success, he says he has never felt fully accepted."

Is it true? Do we have a Napoli-Jordanian pizzeria to call our own?! I've never heard of this Da Willy, has anyone else? Is it possible that the New York Times confused this pizza place with our new Spanish joint el Willy? 

I suspect the paper is malevolently spreading evil rumors to ruin our splendid dreams of eating really good pizza. Sometime soon, the absurd and unjust claims of this media machine need to be purged; these foolish falsehoods exposed to the world as the pot-stirring shenanigans that they are! This isn't fair, and we will not be duped into thinking that awesome pizza is not only an inalienable part of Shanghai, but is readily available to everyone, possibly even for delivery.

Please, do your best to help restore truth to the coverage of our harmonious food scene. You can find the rest of the article here

Late last week I went on a dumpling tour in Shanghai, with Andrea Nguyen. Andrea is the author of Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, a very well-received guide to Vietnamese cooking; she also has a great website and blog here. After a brief stint in Saigon writing a piece for my favorite food magazine, she has been traveling across Asia eating and researching her next book. Shanghai was the last stop on her tour, and she wanted to taste the best xiaolongbao the city has to offer.

One thing that is both telling about the restaurant market here is that xiaolongbao is something uniquely Shanghainese, but the best examples of it can be found at a restaurant that isn’t from Shanghai. I was hoping on this jaunt we would find some better iteration of the soup dumpling on the street; a dumpling that could userp the best xiaolongbao crown from (my current favorite) Ding Tai Fung. This Taiwanese chain is a study in consistency; the kitchen is clean and the flavors and presentation are always precise. Here’s a photo of our simple pork dumplings, which are a whopping RMB 55 per steamer (Note: I am about to disrupt the austere beauty of my blog for your benefit. From now on, at least from time to time, I will include some images. Apparently words are not enough these days.)

These formidable bao met their foe on Huanghe Lu, at local favorite Jiajia Tangbao. See their sloppier rendition of the soup dumpling below.

Once again, I thought DTF was markedly better than Jiajia or any other xiaolongbao I've had on the street. Perhaps not six times better - as the price would suggest - but there is a large difference in the two as you can see simply from looking at the photo. DTF's have a perfect skin - translucent and paper-thin, it sags from the weight of the soup yet manages to hold it all in until it meets your mouth. Jiajia's skin is thicker and more glutinous, and some of the dumplings were very haphazardly constructed (notice the upside-down guys on the left side). This might have been due to the fact that during the lunch rush, a man who wore no uniform who didn't look like kitchen staff was also furiously folding - poorly. Maybe he couldn't afford his lunch and was working it off instead. Jiajia's also had less soup, and were a shade salty; Andrea said they were "homey" and "comforting" and this was certainly true: I can't imagine creating anything like that first photo in my own kitchen. Jiajia's didn't disappoint, and at a fraction of the price they were good. But they can't punch in DTF's weight class.

Below is an image of beautifully wrapped celery and pork dumplings that can be found on Wulumuqi Lu near Fuxing Lu, just beside the wet market. We ate these too, for a taste of something different. They are lighter than xiaolongbao, with a pleasant greenness imparted from all that celery. The skin is thicker and a good deal stickier. But they sure look pretty.

This came out in the AP yesterday. There isn't much new information for insiders following the ASC story, though it does mark a departure from ASC's murky language in the fact that they have admitted their CEO, Don St Pierre Jr, is being 'detained' by customs officials while they investigate customs violations.

What this boils down to is a situation bad for everyone who drinks or sells wine here. Consumers, who've been taken advantage of and importers, who will be placed under more scrutiny. One thing that's interesting about this unfolding story is that everyone seems to be waving around a different figure about import duties: Some say it's 48 percent, others 50, while the AP says duties have dropped from 65 percent down to 14. If this is true, consumers certainly haven't seen this reflected in pricing. Anyways, more below...

AP
Shanghai Customs Targets Wine Importers
Monday March 31, 11:30 am ET
By Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
China's Customs Inspectors Target Wine Importers As Sales of Foreign Vintages Boom

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- Importers of wines and spirits in China have watched sales soar amid a fast-growing class of connoisseurs -- but they're also attracting the attention of Chinese customs inspectors.

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Shanghai customs agents have detained an executive of at least one major wine importer as part of a broad review of the industry.

Shanghai customs officials confirmed that an "audit" of wine importers was under way.

"We are cracking down on some wine importing companies that are suspected of falsifying prices and the case has been handed over to the Customs Smuggling Prevention Department," said Yin Zong, a spokesman for the Shanghai Customs office.

Don St. Pierre, Jr., managing partner of ASC Fine Wines, was taken into custody, his father Don St. Pierre, Sr., confirmed in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Don St. Pierre, Sr., a Beijing-based businessman who once headed American Motors' joint venture Beijing Jeep Corp., said his son was among a number of "wine importer executives being held while the investigation continues."

Don St. Pierre Jr. was cooperating with authorities while being held under rules that allow the detention individuals for up to 30 days without charge, his father said.

"Don has not been charged with any crime and has not been arrested," he said.

Staff at the Shanghai offices of several other major wine importers said their companies had not been targeted, though word of the increased government attention was spreading.

"I did hear that some wine importers are facing a customs crackdown," said a manager at Aussino World Wines' office in Shanghai, giving only his surname, Li.

Li said his company, which has dozens of outlets around China, ships its wines from the southern city of Guangzhou and therefore is not dealing with Shanghai customs.

Staff at wine counters at two downtown supermarkets said a handful of foreign vintages were not available, though it was unclear if the customs inspection was the cause.

In any case, any crackdown is unlikely to stem the craze among newly affluent Chinese for wine tasting and collecting.

Wine imports have soared since Beijing slashed import tariffs to 14 percent from 65 percent several years ago. Boutique wine shops catering as much to local Chinese as to foreigners have opened in many of Shanghai's upscale neighborhoods and major supermarkets.

Customs figures show imports surging 52 percent in the first nine months of 2007 from the same period a year earlier, to 102 million liters, according to industry Web site 21food.com.

Those figures have not been fully reflected in increased customs revenues, due to underreporting of the value of imported products, some in the industry say.

St. Pierre said ASC and customs officials had agreed on a "minuscule" $250,000 discrepancy in ASC's imports over three years, equal to 1.1 percent of the $22 million the company paid in import duties during that time.

"Even the $250,000 alleged underpayment of duties is not clear as there are mitigating circumstances that I am discussing with Customs now," he said.

ASC runs a "Wine Residence" in a Shanghai historic mansion dedicated to educating and cultivating a love of fine wines among its local clientele.

Its program of wine tastings and seminars continues despite the customs inspection, St. Pierre said.

"Stepping back, I've been living and doing business here in China for 22 years now and have gone through lots of these kinds of things and survived," he said. "China is not for the weak hearted."

It's a never ending debate here and in thousands of other places on our hamburger-hooked planet. They're cheap, greasy, satisfying and handheld. They're the guilty pleasure of the sandwich world, and an instant catalyst for a robust food (opinion) fight.

I used to like the burgers at the now-defunct Freelance. I loved the burgers at the now-defunct Kraze Burger (if you scraped all that cloying goo off the top). The sliders at Jean Georges are delightful, as are the neat stack of carefully crafted fries, but when I'm hungover on a Sunday afternoon it's not really a viable dining option. Blue Frog is consistent but I'm pretty picky, and their meat's a little lean and ground too fine for my taste. I like 'em loose and juicy.

I'd heard that the burgers at the agreeably dingy Eager Beaver were good. I didn't buy into the hype primarily because eating something at a bar named after an euphemistic rodent seemed to go against my better judgement. Well, I was wrong.

The Beaver's burger (two words that probably shouldn't cohabitate) is fantastic. It's the perfect size - it will fill you up but it's nicely shaped and the guts wont spill out on the plate if you don't halve it. It's got a salty-peppery crust, it's juicy within, and it's the best burger I've had in town in a long time. Good fries too. Wash it down with the best beer selection in town, and you'll be happy you did.

Eager Beaver - 28 Yueyang Lu near Dongping Lu, 6474 3216.

Al Copeland, founder of the Popeyes fried chicken franchise, died this week at the age of 64.

The early passing of this flamboyant business owner caught my eye because, in one of those 'only in China moments', myself and great old friend Almerindo Portfolio were instrumental in opening Popeyes first outlet in China, in 2003. Instrumental in the respect that we played instruments (I, the tambourine, and Almerindo, the guitar) at their opening ceremony in Chengdu. A Scottish girl, whose name escapes me, rounded out the trio. We performed on a large soundstage, after a group of eerily young, scantily-clad Chinese children finished a rather seductive version of the tango. I believe we sang an Aretha Franklin song, in the spirit of all things southern and satisfying, for a bewildered audience of party cadres, American embassy envoys and regular folk who stumbled upon this odd spectacle. 

The reward for making fools out of ourselves for a few moments was momentous - a limitless, one year supply of FREE fried chicken and other goodies from Popeyes, and some cash. But after about two months of gorging ourselves on the stuff (we took buckets of the spicy goodies on long train rides, and brought friends over for free meals) the corporate machine revoked our delicious privileges. Needless to say, I will never perform for Popeyes again.

Our less-than-stellar performace is humoursly described here  - "At the grand opening of the first Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits in Chengdu several years ago, a trio of laowai billed as an R&B outfit had "less soul than a saltine cracker," according to one audience member."

Ouch.