'Weird Meat' in Shanghai: Drunken Shrimp

Michael Ohlsson is a DJ in Shanghai -- we recently interviewed him -- and he is also a blogger. His site called Weird Meat is about his experiences eating ... well ... weird meats. His latest culinary challenge (other than eating Shanghainese food -- which he hates)? Drunken shrimp:

Drunken shrimp -- you may have seen a dish by this name on a menu in your country, but those are usually cooked. In Shanghai, drunken shrimp is not only raw -- it's alive !! Now I've heard many a Shanghai person talk with disgust about how the Cantonese eat all sorts of weird creatures, but eating a live animal is as weird as it gets. OK, some Americans eat raw oysters, which are actually alive also, but these Shanghai shrimp have little claws -- they bite back as you try to eat them.

They're served in a bowl, alive, swimming in sweet alcohol. It's a good way to go, I think -- if a giant were going to consume me, I'd prefer to have a bath in strong liquor first also. The alcohol helps to make them a little less feisty, too, as if humans needed more of an advantage over little shrimps.

So I rounded up some friends to dine at Shanghai Ren Jia, on a swanky section of Nanjing Road. Shanghai Ren Jia is a local upscale chain. They serve Shanghai food, and people actually pay for it. We started out with plenty of beer and an appetizer of cow's stomach. The cow's stomach was one of the better dishes of the 15 or so that we tried -- soft chewy texture, with little criss-cross indentations that are not only pleasant to look at, but soak up the sauce nicely.

Is Shanghai Ren Jia really upscale? We have only eaten there once -- and someone else paid. Try their pitchers of fresh OJ.

Other recent Weird Meat posts from Shanghai: Chicken Heads and Vertical Pork Bone