Shanghai: final dinner at Shanghai Spring restaurant

This is my last post about meals from my China trip (tear!).  Our final dinner in Shanghai took place at Shanghai Spring (Xiao Nan Guo), a popular restaurant inside the massive Super Brand Mall in Lujiazui, Pudong.  One of the first things I noticed and liked about the restaurant was the fact that at each place setting were two sets of chopsticks, in different colors: one was intended for personal use and the other for serving yourself from the communal dishes.

Additionally, this meal turned out to be an excellent way to end the trip; all of the dishes were flawless and exquisitely presented, and even though (as usual) there was a large number of dishes, each of the flavors was distinct and remained that way even in memory.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  Our first cold dish was lotus root and lotus seeds in a light syrup:

Jellyfish:

Beef tendon:

Smoked yellow fish:

Ma lan tou (some sort of aromatic green) with salmon:

Mu er (wood ear fungus):

Beef:

Whole river fish and "A Po Hong Shao Rou" (traditional red-braised pork) were wonderful, but the pictures are problematic, upload-wise.

Shrimp (remember this preparation?):

Bok choy with bamboo shoots:

Greens-and-sea-bass soup:

Tofu with crab roe (this, and the soup prior, felt like wonderfully glammed up comfort food).  We actually ate this with rice!

And with a final fruit plate, we bid farewell to the greatest food city that I have ever been to, and a place very dear to my heart.