Vegetarians
In the highly competitive world of dining out in Shanghai, in which everyone is looking for something that will make them stand out from the crowd, Zaozishu has quite accidentally played a large role in creating a new vegetarian food culture. Song Yuan-po, who was posted to Shanghai by a real estate company ten years ago, became a vegetarian after his mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2000. But it was very difficult to find a suitable restaurant anywhere in the PRC back then, so Song decided to open his first Zaozishu, whose pronunciation in Chinese is homophonous for the expression "the sooner you start eating vegetarian, the better."
Although there are a few venerable old vegetarian restaurants left in Shanghai (such as Gongdelin and Songyuelou), vegetarian dining is largely restricted to those with religious motives. Most folks still consider vegetarian cuisine to be for the poor, and therefore an embarrassment. However, using plate glass windows and simple but well-wrought small wooden tables, Song has integrated vegetarian food with trendy health and beauty concepts-not to mention offering more than 200 ever-changing dishes on the buffet table-to draw young people into his establishment.
"The best ingredients in the whole world for vegetarian food come from Taiwan, and the standards of refinement for vegetarian dining are set there," states Song. In fact, while mainland Chinese are starting to open vegetarian restaurants, nearly all the upstream suppliers are run by Taiwanese.
But the reason that Zaozishu is so famous in the mainland vegetarian food field is not only because of its rich variety of dishes, but because Song Yuan-po has created a clean and fresh environment free of smoke, alcohol, eggs, or animal flesh, a world of feeling, meaning, and taste. He gives half the income from the restaurant to charity, and once a month he hosts a free dinner for a guest list that includes volunteer teachers and lonely elderly people with no families. He also works to promote environmental, conservation, and animal-rights values in the PRC, so that the vegetarian outlook on life can set down deeper roots, and not just be limited to eating habits or health.
An abstraction
The entry (or should we say entree) of Taiwan restaurants into the mainland has brought some convergence in eating habits, and has also been a real stimulation to culinary culture. Even more, however, it sets the stage for the restaurant industries on the two sides to push each other to new heights.
For instance, chefs in Shanghai have a very solid grounding, and they are ahead of the Taiwanese in basic skills, especially knife work. More points for the mainland side are racked up by the many venerable old recipes and multiple-course meals that trace their origins back into the mists of time.
However, Taiwan cuisine has the advantages of greater exposure to more outside influences, and more creativity. "The restaurant industry in Taiwan can take something very simple and wrap it up in a very interesting way. Take a look at things like mango shaved-ice platters and pearl milk tea, and I think you'll agree with me," says Shanghai Baolaina general manager Dawn Chen. For example, these days five-star restaurants in Taiwan are offering Aboriginal cuisine. The new culinary culture that Taiwan brings will open up the eyes-and mouths-of mainland Chinese to new experiences, and will have an enlightening impact on the mainland restaurant business.
The great modern Chinese intellectual Lin Yu-tang said, "When Chinese eat, they not only eat 'food,' but even more eat 'flavor.' What they appreciate is a kind of abstract feeling." When you think about it, perhaps the most central thing that Taiwanese restaurateurs bring to the mainland is just that kind of abstract "flavor."