Though Shanghai restaurants have been around the city since at least 1970, they really grabbed the spotlight when Joe’s Shanghai introduced soup dumplings in the ’90s, squirting dense, wonderfully oily broth onto innumerable shirtfronts. Other delectable Shanghai classics became readily available around the same time, including soy-braised pork shoulder, vinegar-drenched drunken crab, lion’s mane meatballs, elliptical rice cakes with pickled mustard greens and shredded pork, and vegetarian mock duck.
CheLi’s entrance up a metal stairway on the second floor.
One of CheLi’s objets d’art
But in fact, the menus of the many new Shanghai restaurants that sprang up only scratched the surface. It turned out the cuisine of China’s most populous and futuristic of cities is every bit as rich and multifaceted as New York’s, filled with historic references and geographic borrowings. And now CheLi, a wonderful new restaurant that opened in November on the busiest block of St. Ma