Shanghai is the origin of my roots despite my not having grown up there. It is my father’s culture and homeland. Shanghainese cuisine is what Celia and I grew up eating in Taiwan and Shanghainese dialect is amongst the first languages I grew up listening to (although regrettably one I never picked up). So when my parents started living there part-time three years ago, I began discovering a city that was at once brand new yet so uncannily familiar to me.

Each of my visits is unique. The first two were filled with awe. I saw only the good and the better, the impressive and the more impressive. I wanted to capture the essence of the nostalgic colonial past and linger in it by repeated strolls up and down the tree-lined streets of the French Concession. It hit home that with its Sino-Franco sub-community, which evolved from a strong French presence dating from the concession days, this is the city of my dreams. (More details about my Francophile background in the May Paris feature.) On my third trip, I noticed the backwardness, the abandoned housing, the rude service, the poverty and more stark realities of a city that is outperforming expectations on the surface but maybe not quite so in infrastructure. Subsequent trips have all had their own flavors, balancing the good and the bad but definitely leaving me with more honest impressions.

I just got back this month from a weeklong stay researching a travel piece on this “city of the moment” everyone is talking about, writing about and booking flights to.

Here are some discoveries I would like to share.

Note: The Chinese restaurants I recommend serve superb food but might not have the spiffiest décor or a menu in English (not to mention an English-speaking waitstaff). Try these places if you want to taste some authentic and delectable local cuisine. My advice is either to be adventurous and order from what you see other tables are having or to simply bring along a Chinese speaker.