Shanghai ChefsAbout the Culinary World of Shanghai

Once getting past the the throngs of sleazebags selling tickets outside the building for an event that is actually free of charge, we were looking forward to seeing what was on offer for the Shanghai food scene at the moment. The SIAL event held a week ago was somewhat disappointing, with the display of different food items veering more towards local Chinese supermarket products including cheap lollies and crackers. There was a wide selection of wine vendors, but many other foreign vendors such as Organic Powdered Chicken Egg and Papa Mario was just devastatingly disappointing and pointless.

Compared to the FHC trade show featuring products from various countries, the SIAL event was not really worth a visit – besides of course for the Cooking Trends Demonstration.

Organized by ‘Chef of the Year’(as voted by CW Editors) Emmanuel Soliere, the demonstration covered different themes from East Meets West, Foie Gras, Sub Zero, etc. A few of the chefs involved in the demonstrations were Dan Segall (M1NT), Shaun Anthony (NAPA Wine Bar & Kitchen), and Brian Tan (House of Flour).

While it was a good opportunity for these chefs to show the spectators some cooking skills and techniques, the spectators a.k.a. cheap freeloaders were more interested in eating the finished product rather than learning anything. One of the chefs described the feeling of being surrounded by hungry, snarling vultures with some of the spectators grabbing items of the demonstration plates before the chefs even had a chance to finish plating up.

Though there were a handful that seem genuinely interested, pulling out their cameras and snapping away; we couldn’t help but wonder – rather synically – whether we would see replicas of these demonstrated dishes in a ‘new restaurant’ a few weeks later.

Only time will tell…