Southern Barbarian Fantastic Yunnanese Food
On Sunday night we braved the cold to traipse over to Southern Barbarian in Jinxian Lu.
Southern Barbarian serves Yunnanese cuisine from the south western province that borders Laos and Vietnam. The food there is well known for being spicy.
The restaurant is on the second floor of the market that is sandwiched between Jinxian and Maoming Lu. It was not so easy to find. You have to navigate a maze of stalls, cross a plank and climb some stairs before you eventually arrive.
Southern Barbarian serves Yunnanese food, but they haven’t turned the restaurant into an ethnic theme park. The staff wear plain black shirts. The walls are plain white and the floors are charcoal stone. They have a black and white photo exhibition from Ying Tang, which was recently attended by actor Steve Buscemi. Otherwise, the choice of latin music could almost fall you into thinking that Southern Barbarian is a tapas restaurant.
What about the food? Wow! We ordered a few dishes. A bowl of delicious fried green vegetables arrived within a few minutes. They tasted clean and wholesome. Then they served us some amazing roasted goats cheese that excited us, because it was so unexpected to taste something so mediteranean as a provincial Chinese dish. Next came a large bowl of fresh soup and noodles that were perfectly warming for such an inhospitable evening.
The highlight of the meal was the barbecued fish that had been roasted in spices and peppercorns. It was soft, moist and slightly fiery causing our mouths to glow.
We will return. You an buy cheaper Yunnanes food in Shanghai, but we paid just 133 RMB for one of the most delicious meals we have eaten for ages.
Address:
Southern Barbarian, 2F Area E, Ju’Roshine Life Arts Space, 56 Maoming Nanlu (near Jinxian Lu). 上海聚荣轩生活艺术空间南蛮子餐厅. 上海市茂名南路56号E-16. Tel: 5157-5510.