In Shanghai, me and Hanna lived close to one of the real hot spots for expats: Yongkang Lu. People mostly went there for the numerous bars. To eat, barhop and have a good time. This however didn’t sit well with the locals (living on the second floors along the street) who regularly started throwing things from their homes down to the street when the clock past 10PM – the official curfew.
Things deteriorated further I guess, as Chinese authorities closed the street shortly after we moved back to Sweden. Anyway, we didn’t go there much for the drinking but we did frequent a café called Pain Chaud. A surprisingly wonderful French café, though everyone weren’t aware of that. One of the first time we went there the Chinese waitress serving us asked what “Pain Chaud” meant and which language it was 🙂 A french café yes, yet unabashedly Chinese.
Most importantly, they made great cakes and best of the bunch was this lemon/ meringue tart. I’ve tried to recreate it and I think I’ve done a decent job. I’ve pieced it together from a version of the filling in Greg’s tangy lemon tart, a less sweet variant of this simple pie dough, and this Leif Mannerström Italian meringue recipe. The result is different from the thing we had, but very good.