ISpyShanghai

Jade on 36 is one of the ritziest restaurants in town, last night I went there and ate probably the best meal of my life.

To celebrate my anniversary with Emma (3 whole weeks- and they said we wouldn’t last), she picked me up from the airport, I got dressed in the toilets and we went to the Shangri-La hotel in Pudong.

The view from the top floor of the Shangri-La is incredible- you can watch boats slipping up and down the river, the full sweep of the Bund, fairy lights on the flying roofs of the old town, the lipstick towers of XJH , back to Plaza66, and the main ‘Pearl’ of the Pearl Tower up close and personal. Forget the Jin Mao, this is the view of the city.

If you’ve lived in Shanghai for a while you’re bound to have heard about the restaurant there too- it does the kind of “Molecular gastronomy” that all the cool chefs are trying these days; noodles made out of cuttle fish, chalk made out of cheese, Boxer Rebellion flavoured ice-cream, that kind of thing.

Here’s an example:

Duck a l’orange Sunny Side-Up

It’s duck a l’orange with the Orange juice in a little pouch on a bed of cocunut something or other, with the whole thing made to look like a full english breakfast.

Pretenious? Bien feckin’ Sûr- but it’s also kind of funny, and face-meltingly delicious.

The whole menu is like that, one course was a long strip of raw tuna with a 30cm french fry alongside it- “Aha!” you think “What a witty, po-mo take on fish’n'chips! He is playing with a sense of scale and, and, oh Christ that tastes good”

There were a million great points about the meal, (with 803,400 of them being the “Truffle Burnt Soup Bread” which was, just ahhh- oh I give up. Good.)

Apart from the bit where the waiter filled my wine glass with water (which when the water costs 150RMB and the wine 400RMB was a doubly pricey waste of both), it was pretty much perfect. By the end I had to lie down in the taxi because my taste buds were worn through.

Jade of Jade XL menu @ Jade on 36- 1034RMB (+ drinks. It’s only one a year eh?)