Food in Shanghai: Donbeiren & Late Night Hot Pot

Next it was time to try Chinese food completely unlike any I've seen in America. For lunch, we tried a Manchurian Donbeiren-style restaurant.

Red curtains wishing us all good luck! (I may need it...)

Fried ... something? I can't quite remember what these were. Tasty though:

Translucent noodles made out of bean curd, covered with colorful thinly-sliced vegetables:

Pork joints. Note the straws meant for sucking out the juice:

Manchurian-style dumplings, with various vegetable fillings:

Then on some night we explored a street where locals go to cure their late-night hunger pangs. Here you can get pretty much any kind of Asian food you want:

We opted for a hot pot place, with a most unique Honey, I Shrunk The Kids-like interior:

It was noisy and crowded. There was a recess in our table with boiling spicy oil. Various plates of uncooked ingredients like green leafy veggies, onions, mushrooms, beef, and live (still hopping!) shrimp arrived for us to slide on into the murky depths.

Technically, we do have some so-called Hot Pot places in Los Angeles, but to my knowledge they are Korean, or the Japanese Shabu Shabu variety. In any case, I'm quite certain they don't have giant illuminated mushrooms sprouting up out of the floor like this place.