Legend has it that huangjiu, or yellow wine, was invented by Du Kang, the god of Chinese alcohol. Annual production starts in eastern China’s Shaoxing region in the tenth lunar month – the temperature and humidity at that time of year create the best environment for making the wine – with sacrifices to Du Kang. The wine is made from fermenting glutinous rice with wheat or rice qu, a cake of mashed grains that cultivate yeast; both convert the starch to sugar then to alcohol. The product of all that fermentation is a sherry-like amber liquid that is used in Chinese cooking or served as a drink paired with Chinese foods.

When Chef Anthony Zhao was planning the relaunch of Mi Xiang Yuan, a home-style lunch spot popular with local office workers looking for a healthy set meal, he knew he had to get one thing right: the rice. At the first alleyway restaurant just north of Xintiandi, Zhao sourced many of his ingredients for his Shanghainese bento boxes from family members’ farms. These small operations used organic techniques, although they were too small-scale to obtain official certification. But high demand for his set meals has made sourcing from family farms impossible. So while updating the menu for the latest Mi Xiang Yuan, Zhao approached sourcing ingredients with the same standards – even if it wasn’t going to come from a family member’s farm, it still had to be of the highest quality.

In 2017, Shanghai’s longest-running open-air market at Tangjiawan Lu, which had provided the neighborhood with fresh produce, fish, and seasonal foodstuffs for almost 115 years, shuttered its doors. The market and much of the area around the Laoximen metro station were some of the last historical (albeit run-down) structures in an otherwise central area full of expensive new residences. Construction has already begun on the entire city block’s worth of high-rises being built in its place, and the surrounding blocks – like many of Shanghai’s backstreets – are on notice, as the wrecking balls and construction crews continue to reshape the urban landscape at an incredibly fast rate.