Shanghai Eats: A Spectacular Plant-based Lunch at Duli
A couple days ago, I had lunch with a friend at Duli, a cozy little eatery less than 10 minutes walk from my apartment, on Donghu Road. And it happens that all of what they serve inside is plant-based.
They had a very limited menu, but everything looked appetizing so it was still rather hard to choose. Since it was below freezing outside, we stuck with the hot dishes, leaving the cold plates for another time.
At the top of this picture was the Thai Tom Yum Gong soup with wontons. The wontons were filled with broccoli, water chestnut, and tofu, and topped with shiitake mushrooms, scallion, all in a red curry broth. The wontons were huge - definitely two-bite affairs, and the flavor of the broth was quite light. I liked the soft texture of the filling.
We also got a straightforward vegetable stir-fry, with cashews, red bell peppers, wood ear, sugar snap peas, bamboo shoots, and crispy lotus root slices in a lightly spicy sauce.
I loved these croquetas. They referenced 地三鲜, di4san3xian1, or the three vegetables of bell pepper, eggplant, and potato, which are traditionally stir-fried. But these 炸地三鲜土豆球, fried di4san3xian1 potato balls, had dark saucy filling of bell pepper and eggplant, surrounded by mashed potato, deep fried, and placed on cabbage puree sauce, and topped with some pea shoots. These were an excellent combination of flavors and textures.
These bao were also very successful, with the contrasting textures of the fried fritters and the soft steamed homemade baos. The fritters had cauliflower, corn, and chickpea fabada in them, and topped with pickeled red cabbage and cilantro. Wonderful!
It was nice and warm inside, and we were feeling comfortable at our little table, so instead of going to a nearby coffee shop, we finished off with some well-made matcha lattes with oat milk.
I really can’t wait to go back and try the other dishes we didn’t get around to trying on this first visit!
