If you find yourself in the waiting area at Tang Gong (an hour-long inevitability if you go for dim sum on the weekends), there’s plenty to see to make the minutes go by faster. Slip-covered chairs lined up like movie theater seats in the lobby are an ideal perch for people-watching, although you’ll have to turn away from the display of Moutai baijiu and the flat-screen they face for a better view of the hungry hordes.

It’s a rare feat, even in Shanghai, when a Chinese restaurant serves authentic dishes in an atmosphere that is style-conscious, laid-back and affordable. Spicy Moment manages all three, so it’s no surprise to learn that the owner, Lao Deng, owns a quirky interior design shop just across the street and constantly moves between the two spaces. His jaunty hats reveal an eye for style, and perhaps this Hunan native can take some credit for turning Wuyuan Lu into one of the former French Concession’s hottest browsing – and now eating – destinations.

Strict vegetarians in Shanghai face a double-edged sword when it comes to staying meat-free. On the one hand, the country’s large Buddhist population means they are in good company. It is estimated that the total number of vegetarians in China reached about 50 million last year. However, while tofu dishes can be found on just about every Chinese menu, that doesn’t mean that the dishes are strictly meat-free. To vegetarians’ dismay, pork and meat-based broths are often used to give the soy-based dishes more flavor, and special requests (even simple ones like “no meat”) are not usually complied with (or understood). Traditionally, meat is often sliced in very thin strips (肉丝, ròu sī) and used to flavor vegetable and tofu dishes, as opposed to being the star

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I’ve heard some horror stories about food safety scandals in China. How does an adventurous eater explore Shanghai without having any culinary misadventures? There’s no hiding the fact that recent years have seen the highly publicized exposure of some unsavory information on China’s food safety record. While the headlines may not be any worse than those seen recently in other countries (whether unlabeled horse meat or fecal matter in ground turkey), the Chinese lately have reached appalling levels of creativity in their food scandals, from thousands of diseased pigs washing up in the Huangpu River, to rat, fox and mink meat being pawned off as lamb at hotpot restaurants.

Cantonese seafood restaurants are almost always stuffy dining institutions, with gilded menus listing astronomically priced shark’s fin soup and braised abalone in private dining rooms with gaudy chandeliers. Like a rebellious younger sibling, Apo’s Seafood has taken the marine Canto theme down a road more graffitied, democratizing the experience by scrapping the stuffiness and serving up affordable, delicious fare from the ocean.

Editor's note: We're sorry to report that the vendors and restaurants at Sipalou Lu and Fangbang Lu have suffered the same fate as those on Wujiang Lu and have been shut down. For street food, head to the area around Er Guang. In the lead-up to the 2010 World Expo, the government tore down one of Shanghai’s most famous food streets, Wujiang Lu, so the city would appear more “civilized” in the eyes of businesspeople and tourists visiting from around the world. Sparkling cookie-cutter international brands replaced family-run hawker stalls, and Wujiang Lu’s fried bun purveyors and stinky tofu vendors were scattered across the city. But its sad fate, which left a gaping hole in the city’s culinary landscape, also created new opportunities, allowing Fangbang Lu to become one of the city’s top food streets.

Dear Culinary Backstreets,I love to cook as much as I love to eat, and on my upcoming trip to Shanghai, I’d love to take a cooking class to learn more about Chinese cooking and ingredients. Where can I take English-language cooking classes in the city? With the typical Chinese menu offering 100-plus items, there is a world of Chinese cooking to be discovered, whether you’re in Shanghai for a brief trip or an extended expat adventure. Learning the cooking methods behind some of your favorite dishes will give you the tools to recreate (and adapt to your tastes) your favorite dishes at home using ingredients commonly found in neighborhood markets. One of the biggest expenses expats face in the city is relying on imported food to make Western dishes, which can provide even more incentive to learn to cook local delicacies.

At noon, the line stretches out the door and there’s a noisy rumble of loud voices inside the Ruijin Erlu and Nanchang Lu branch of Fengyu (丰裕), a neighborhood staple that has fed locals for decades deep in the heart of the former French Concession. According to Dianping, China’s most-visited food website, there are 35 branches of this eatery, whose name aptly means “plentiful abundance,” and some are franchised with slightly varied menus. This branch is state-owned, and it opens early, like most of Shanghai. (Latecomers will find most of the dishes sold out.)

One of China’s most successful franchise stories comes from Putian, a coastal city in Fujian with a population of about 3 million. The province is probably known best for the many who leave it, especially those who have been smuggled into the United States by snakeheads, and including domestic emigrants who move to hub cities, bringing their culinary traditions along with them.

Nanxiang Steamed Dumpling Restaurant has one of the most historic queues in town. The creators of Shanghai’s famous soup dumpling have a suburban origin story that turned central when they relocated next to the tourist destination Yu Gardens in 1900, but time hasn’t been on their side. A government-owned company since 1945, Nanxiang’s passé dumplings are ones to take a pass on, even if they didn’t require standing single-file for an hour at peak meal times. But there are some restaurants and food stalls in Shanghai that are well worth the wait.

The hardest part about dining in Hong Kong is choosing among the overwhelming number of options. It’s one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, with more than 7 million mouths to feed – and many with demanding palates. You can stand on just about any block in the city and find several affordable eateries above, below and across from you (kind of like Starbucks in Seattle).

Unwieldy English restaurant names often lose a lot in translation. Take Zhu Que Men, or “The Gate of the Vermillion Bird.” The name, which draws on Chinese astrology and Taoism, might seem a little highfalutin’ for a home-style noodle joint, but the subtext speaks volumes.

Editor’s note: In the latest installment of our recurring feature, First Stop, we asked Lillian Chou, former food editor of Gourmet and now a freelance writer in Beijing, where she heads first for food when she arrives in Shanghai. There are several factors that decide where I eat first when I arrive in Shanghai – mostly, it’s whether I’m alone or with friends and what kind of eaters they are and how much time we have.

Some people argue that it’s not KFC’s secret blend of 11 herbs and spices that makes their fried chicken so successful, but rather the cooking technique. Deep-frying the chickens in a pressure cooker saved on oil and time in the 1930s, making the crispy bone-in chicken a feasible option for fast-food chains. Until this new gizmo became popular, the fast-food industry was almost exclusively made up of quick-serve burgers and fries.

In a country where the traditional way to greet someone translates to “Have you eaten yet?” (你吃了吗? Nǐ chīle ma?), it should come as no surprise that food idioms permeate everyday language in China. Chinese culture also prizes indirectness, so idioms are the perfect way to portray deep meaning without being overt. Frustrating for cross-cultural businessmen and language students or not, chengyu (成语), the ever-present four character idioms, and xiyu (习语), which are generally longer, are often the source of the hilariously mistranslated Chinglish you still see on street signs and menus today.