Food for the Masses

What to order at the city's best Shanghai restaurant.

With his new restaurant, Flying Pan Bistro, chef-owner Chia Ji Nei (who also owns the funky, menu-free, reservations-only Chinatown favorite Jai Yun) is bringing authentic Shanghai-style food to the masses. Trade in boring sesame chicken for the real deal: the irresistible zha jiang mein (noodles topped with a savory gravy tossed with soybeans and bits of minced pork), vegetarian delight with dry bean curd and kung pao Shanghai-style wheat-gluten puff (a stir-fry that combines cubes of wheat gluten, zucchini, asparagus, small pieces of bamboo shoots and roasted peanuts in a spicy, nose-clearing sauce). Nothing on the menu cracks $12, so you might as well go ahead and try the drunken duck’s tongue too.
 
Flying Pan Bistro 680 Clay St., 415-399-1938

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