Chinese restaurant stresses Shanghai-style cuisine

QinQin's dishes are light, simple

Oct. 22, 2006

The best Chinese restaurant we know in the Chippewa Valley has a new name: QinQin (pronounced "cheen-cheen").

Until recently, QinQin was called Shanghai Restaurant. Owners Youxin Gao and Xiaoling Qin changed the name to avoid conflict with the owner of Shanghai Bistro, an Eau Claire restaurant serving Pan-Asian food.

The name Shanghai Restaurant was Gao's tribute to Qin, his wife-to-be and a Shanghai native who trained in that city as a prep cook and saucier. It also showcased their commitment to preparing Shanghai specialties and to cooking all dishes, even familiar American-Chinese ones, in the Shanghai style.

The new name honors Qin and her beloved niece QinQin, who lives in Shanghai. It also invokes youth, growth and hope.

In Shanghai cooking, flavors are clear, simple and relatively light. Richness and darker flavors are possible, but seasonings should enhance, never dominate, a dish's main ingredients.

Most Shanghai food has a soft sugar note that harmonizes with the region's other favorite flavors: black vinegar, rice wine, ginger, scallions, soy sauce, garlic.

Gao trained in Chinese restaurants in the Twin Cities to prepare for what he happily calls "my second life."

A physician and gene-researcher in China, Gao received a postdoctoral fellowship for further research and study in the United States. Among his many degrees are a doctorate of medicine from China and a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Minnesota.

He and Qin met in the kitchen of St. Paul's Grand Shanghai.

When describing their restaurant's cooking, Qin emphasized beautiful colors, formal presentation and enticing aromas.

"Just beauty and aroma are not enough," Gao added. "When you taste, it must be — Oh! Worth tasting!"

Five things set QinQin apart.

First, Gao and Qin's devotion to one regional style gives their food a memorable clarity and coherence.

They work from scratch, making their own broths and sauces and cooking everything possible in the shell or on the bone, for flavor. Dishes are served immediately, often crackingly hot and billowing with steam.

They offer seasonal specials and techniques. This winter they plan hot-pot cooking: traditional warming braises of lamb and other long-simmered fare.

Gao the physician insists on linking food and well-being. He delights in recommending healthful dishes.

Finally, he and Qin are among the warmest and most welcoming restaurateurs we know, beginning especially with your second visit.

Unfortunately, QinQin's large menu is not yet organized with clear divisions between Shanghai dishes, authentic dishes from other regions of China and American-Chinese favorites. Invite Qin or Gao to suggest a Shanghai appetizer or two and an authentic entrée to share for each person at table.

The people of Shanghai love dumplings — and QinQin's best are the juicy Steamed Bao, $6. Though not made in-house, they are excellent: soft wheat-flour purses enclosing velvety pork meatballs with an urgency of garlic. The gingered black-vinegar sauce is splendid.

Cold appetizers are a Shanghai must — and Qin's Smoked Fish, $4.50, is superb. Thick crosscuts of tilapia are not actually smoked; they're marinated in garlic, ginger, scallion and soy, then deep-fried until the skin blackens and caramelizes.

Also good is the Aromatic Beef dressed with cinnamon, soy and ginger, $4.50, and the Jellyfish Salad, $4.50, with a yielding crunch so surprising and fun it's like Pop Rocks for daring adults.

With easy access to fresh waterways and the sea, Shanghai's inhabitants also love seafood. At QinQin, shrimp, squid and fish are good choices. We revere Gao's whole Shanghai Steamed Sole with Qin's marvelous ginger-scallion sauce.

Although deep-fried seafood is not traditional in Shanghai, Gao's whole deep-fried sole and a recent spate of deep-fried crab specials were revelations. The sole offered skin with a whole range of salty crispnesses, flesh from creamy-moist to chewy-moist and edible bones that popped in the mouth like potato chips. Both the steamed and deep-fried soles are listed as market price. Both were $15 when we tried them.

Each whole crab — a single serving — was magnificent: cornstarch-dusted, deep-fried with hot peppers and salt or scallions and ginger, chunked apart with a cleaver and drizzled with black-vinegar sauce, $14.50. Some intricate finger work is required, and much concentration, but nearly every exploratory poke and scoop finds succulent treasure. Don't miss the astonishing yellowish-brown crab butter in the main shell.

The menu's "hometown" or "Benbang" section has our favorite vegetable dishes, rustic stir-fries of Chinese greens, broccoli, string beans or baby bok choy, any of which can be meatless. (They're best with pork.)

And we've never had a better tofu dish than Gao's Ma Po Tofu, $7.25, a specialty from Suzhou, near Shanghai: black mushrooms, green onions, bamboo and melting tofu simmered in a spicy chili sauce.

When you dine at QinQin, make sure you have time. Qin and Gao are the managers, cooks, servers, cashiers, delivery drivers, dishwashers and cleanup crew. Gao cooks only to order. Meal service may be slow.

But little, one-of-a-kind restaurants are gifts we customers give ourselves. Our understanding, patience and loyal patronage are the guarantors of great food.

Other recommended dishes:

Soups: Fish and Tofu, Hot and Sour, Lu-Song and Pork Chinese Pickle Noodle.

Entrées: Seafood Stir-fry with Asparagus, Shrimp with Broccoli, Salt and Pepper Shrimp or Squid, String Beans With Pork, Pork Ribs Beijing- Style, Roast Crispy Duck, Peking Duck, General Tso's Chicken, Peach Chicken, Szechuan Eggplant and Beef and Potato.

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.