Language became quite a challenge ordering food. Shanghai is famous for xiaolongbao or dumplings. There are whole restaurants which sell nothing but. They have tills where you pay before sitting down with lists of what is available. They are in Chinese. Some have plates of dumplings ready to be cooked you can point to or the really posh ones may have photos in the menu. That really doesn't help. Dumplings may contain pork, prawns or vegetables. The vegetables can be appetising or green goo. However from the outside a dumpling is a dumpling with no hint as to the contents. There again a dumpling may come fried, steamed or in soup. When pointing to an uncooked dumpling you have no idea how it will come. The only solution is to stare very hard at other diners as they eat and then try and point at their food.
The more general midmarket restaurants with menus translated into english don't always help either. "Bad fish slipped" was actually very nice. "Caterpillar fungus flower of jiangou province old chicken stew" is reasonably decriptive and one can hazard a guess at "Hot boil in water for a while cow's shutter" although the guess put me off ordering it. "Mountain delicacies miscellaneous pot monsters" could be identified as a selection of mushrooms by the picture , but what "Born fried irrigation with described it" or "Taste hand held device" were, we never found out.
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