Sense and Memory

I don't remember exactly when It was, but the first time I ate at Shanghai Cafe made a big impression on me. I was working at a used bookstore downtown, and heard about Shanghai from the chain-smoking vegans working as clerks at the cigar store across the street, who loved the vegetarian chicken there. I went down for lunch one day sometime in 2003 and got vegetarian General Tso's chicken and the special Vietnamese egg roll. Those vegans knew what they were talking about. The vegetarian chicken was (and still is) remarkable. It's some kind of textured vegetable protein, with a little smoke flavor and spice. It dosen't really taste like chicken but that's okay. In the General Tso's, it's breaded and deep-fried, and served with vegatables in a spicy brown sauce. In other preparations, it's pan-cooked so it's chewy. I was skeptical initially, but the vegetarian chicken is actulally better at Shanghai than the poultry-based version.

The decidedly carnivorous Vietnamese egg rolls at Shanghai are even more impressive, the biggest and best egg rolls I have ever had. Ground pork and vegetables flavored with fish sauce are wrapped in a double layer of wonton skin and deep-fried to a nutty brown. the burrito-sized package is sliced into large bites and served with dipping sauce. An order of two eats like a meal and costs under four dollars. Needless to say, I was hooked. From 2004 to 2006 I ate at Shanghai about twice a week, interrupted only by a job change and the discovery of a tremendous selection of Vietnamese food in West Valley.

Shanghai Cafe is located in an extremely nondescript strip mall on 1300 South and State Street. They paint it about every 2 years. If it's gray they paint it tan, and if it's tan they paint it gray, just to keep things fresh. The L-shaped dining room has windows on 2 sides decorated with the slogan, "Vegetarian food for long life." Decor is Standard Asian Restaurant, a little cluttered behind the front counter and in the back hallway to the bathrooms. Things look less threadbare in recent months with the addition of new drapes and carpet.

After several months of very regular visits, I settled into a solid routine. Two of the big egg rolls for one person were a heart-stopper, but I found I could order a vermicelli noodle salad (Bún thịt nướng on the menu) topped with grilled pork and 1 sliced egg roll for six dollars and change. I grew to appreciate how consistently fast the kitchen is, usually turning out food in under 15 minutes even when the dining room is crowded. I also appreciate the businesslike-bordering-on-unfriendly quality of the service, which for the first several months consisted of the same three sentences every visit: "Table for one?" "Ready to order?" and "More water?" After maybe six months of getting the same thing every time, they changed "Ready to order?" to "Regular order?"

Vermicelli noodle salad is on the menu of any Vietnamese restaurant anywhere, but for my $6.50, Shanghai Cafe has the best one anywhere. They have the proportions dialed, with a big bowl with not too many noodles and ample amounts of the other stuff that makes this dish so good. They top the salad with enough meat that I commonly have a delicious morsel in my last bite. Green leaf lettuce, bean sprouts, julienned cucumber, and shredded carrot are a major component of the salad instead of a garnish, as they can be in inferior examples. It's all finished off with crushed peanuts, roasted garlic, green onion, and the characteristic fish sauce-vinegar-sugar dressing.




I like the idea of an index dish, an item that I can use to compare different restaurants.  Vermicelli salad with grilled pork and egg roll became my index dish,  for my first year of eating Vietnamese, and no other restaurant in  the Salt Lake Valley ever approached it.  I've since become more of a Pho eater, but I will always go back to Shanghai to eat this.