Bi Feng Tang

After the deliciousness of last time's Dim Sum, I had high hopes going to Bi Feng Tang on Central Street (which I've mentioned previously here).

The food was nothing spectacular - on a par with my previous experiences with Bi Feng Tang in Shanghai, but without the food poisoning!

The next day was Ren Zhen's birthday so we decided to stay until after midnight, ordering bottle after bottle of the cheapest Harbin Beer, and chatting happily away about nothing much. As midnight neared, the 味精 low kicked in, and we ordered a plate of duck heads.

Anatomically, the dish was a mystery to me.

"This bit's the tongue" Ren Zhen informed me, cheerfully tearing at a strip of meat in the centre of what appeared to be two halves of beak. I understand that the heads have been sliced down the centre and flattened out, but I still had no idea what was cheek, what was chin and where the eyes had gone. Still, in keeping with my steadfast commitment to eating absolutely anything, I chomped down on one.


It was surprisingly meaty, but the flavour was mostly obscured by the cooking - deep-fried and heavily-seasoned.

I was reminded by a conversation I'd had with Meisong a few weeks before.

"I hear that Americans eat just the breast of the chicken..." A puzzled look as the statement was worked through to its logical conclusion. "... and throw the rest away?"

I reassured him that it wasn't quite as bad as that, but certainly, most Westerners wouldn't willingly eat feet, butt, neck, head or most of the innards... at least if it wasn't water-blasted from the bones, pulped, reconstituted and made into hamburgers, sausages, or pies!

We didn't leave until well after midnight. The normally bustling Central Street was completely deserted.

We passed a shop which was in the process of being renovated. A team of four or five guys were busy ripping the place to pieces - heavy work gloves the only concession to health and safety in sight.

This is the reason it takes three years to install an island and a set of traffic lights back home, and why an entire residential street in Shanghai can be repaved noisily on a Sunday morning in less time than it takes to sleep off a hangover.

I won't gripe too much, because continous overnight shifts with tired and poorly-trained workers with a minimal grasp of health and safety is obviously a little far in the opposite direction. Then again, I'm sure there's a happy medium to be found somewhere. Dad tells me that every time he goes to do some work in a tunnel on the Underground, he has to go through the same training talk!

I took a shot of the street in the most pretentious way I could think. Dead-centre, ultra-low, and with a long exposure. I don't pretend to know much about photography but I like how the street lamps are reflected in the cobblestones. I could have done without the neon signs on the right though.