Shanghai fried wontons in London
What’s the appropriate food for a quick picnic in Holland Park before the opera? As I’d been experimenting all day in the kitchen, I took a Chinese first course: garland chrysanthemum leaves with roasted pine kernels (松仁蒿菜）and Shanghainese pot-sticker wontons （干煎馄饨） filled with minced pork and spinach (spinach as a substitute for the traditional shepherd’s purse greens 荠菜) served with a dip of Chinkiang vinegar with a little soy sauce. The wontons, wrapped in foil and stored in a plastic box, were still warm when we ate them. And then we had strawberries and cream.
11 July 2010
The food looks delicious & although I’d not thought of it before, I’ll try to include dumplings & wontons in my “travel food” in future. Being a Yank, I had to look up the locations you wrote about. Holland Park seems a special, beautiful place. It seems appropriate (& amusing) to picnic in a history-laden London park that includes a Japanese Garden & pigs working to reclaim nature while dining on Chinese delicacies before attending an Italian opera. Life is good.