Evergreen Shanghai

When I worked at 38th and Madison toward the end of the '90s, Evergreen Shanghai was one of the few affordable places in the neighborhood to have lunch. I was a regular. It may not be the first place I ever had soup dumplings, but it's one of the first to really stand out in my memory for the succulent morsels of pork and spices steamed in tender paper-thin wrappers.

After a long stretch between visits, I've been back to Evergreen a couple of times recently. In December I dropped in for a snack with the Networking Maven after we went to a professional event together. We paused in front of the door right at closing time, and a waiter came out to invite us in. We ordered soup dumplings (still succulent) and crispy scallion pancakes. We nibbled and chatted, recapping the conversations and interactions at our earlier event. We were the only people in the place, I wish I had left a bigger tip. I'm afraid my arithmetic skills were somewhat impaired by our earlier networking session.

I was back at Evergreen earlier this week with Miz Style and the Practical Joker. We were waiting for Mean Cuisine to possibly join us. Once we were seated in the practically empty restaurant, no one approached our table for ages. We happily filled a half hour with conversation, then I flagged down a waiter to ask if we could order drinks. He explained that Evergreen no longer has a liquor license, but if we wanted beer or wine he could tell us where to buy it. I ran out to the liquor store around the corner.

When I returned with a bottle of Hogue Fume Blanc, the staff quickly brought glasses and four dishes of tasty appetizers: sea-veg salad, marinated daikon and carrots, another marinated veg dish, and herbed salted nuts. We relaxed and settled in for an evening of fun.

We ordered soup dumplings, moo shu chicken, Buddha's Delight and broccoli with garlic sauce. All of the portions were large enough to share, the food was hot and fresh. The soup dumplings were divine, as always. The Buddha's Delight was mostly broccoli, with a brown sauce and some cellophane noodles. I enjoyed it, but it was a very different preparation than I'd expected -- the sauce is usually lighter and the veg combination more varied. The moo shu pancakes were very thin and light, the waiter wrapped them for us at tableside and served them with a side dish of hoisin sauce.

The service was a little odd. They mostly left us to our own devices, which is fine with me, since we were there for an evening of food, wine and conversation. But it did seem strange that they didn't offer tea or water or rice, or volunteer the information about the BYOB policy or mention that our main course selections consisted mostly of broccoli.

I would eat there again, but would probably be more "proactive," as the consultants love to say.