On a recent visit to Shanghai we got to try a strange combination of flavours – a Japanese spaghetti restaurant in China.
This chain, originally from Japan, has spread to China and Singapore, serving spaghetti in both Japanese, Chinese and original Italian style.
The idea is “spaghetti with chopsticks” and even though we tried it at random we were quite positively surprised by the quality and taste of the food.
The spaghetti are served on beautiful blue-patterned plates and the portion size is Eastern style – about one and a half portions are enough for a Western stomach. We bought three dishes and shared the last, which also gave us the possibility to sample both a Western, Japanese and Shanghainese flavour pasta dish.
My favourite was the Japanese “Carbonara” with fish eggs, nori and egg. There was a little much cream in it but the flavour was fantastic! This is definitely one to recreate at home.
The picture shows a similar dish with added clams (Spaghetti Vongole being another of my all-time Italian favourites) and the Italian dish, spaghetti with eggplants. Hardcore Vegetarians beware though, as I suspect even the vegetarian dishes to be made on a meat broth basis in China’s cavalier attitude to Vegetarianism in general.
Eating pasta with chopsticks is fun! The Chinese bolognese is not vegetarian but I was assured it tasted great (and it did smell great!).
One little problem is that the menu is in Chinese and Japanese only, though there are pictures and the dishes are on display outside the restaurant as well. I still got to practice my katakana skills as the personnel was very nice but not extremely good at English.
Spaghetti Goemon
169 Wujiang Lu
Jingan district, Shanghai
(near Metro station Nanjing Road West)
Mmm, I remember eating here for lunch during my visit to the WFC in Shanghai. I found the menu pictures very helpful- I only wish I knew the name of the meal I ate because it was so amazing I’d risk attempting to copy the recipe at home. The waiters were really nice too, they smiled when I said “arigatou” when my group was leaving. :D Maybe they were thankful yet another foreigner didn’t mistake them for being Chinese?
Ah, eating with chopsticks proved to be a challenge… I wasn’t sure how to tackle the noodles until I saw other patrons raising the bowls to their faces and slurping them up, so I just copied them. Messy, but fun. This review brings back good memories, thank you!