It is useful occasionally for the parents of small children to be reminded exactly what it's like trying new foods. Most of us just plate up whatever happens to be knocking about in the fridge - 'Here darling, try some of this lurid pink taramasalata' - and presume our two-year-old is being a total nancy with a brain hard-wired for junk food if they refuse to shove it in their gobs.
Now that the global larder is open to us all, there are very few things most of us haven't tried by the time our children come along. We forget what it's like. So a trip to the Capital, which proclaims itself the only Chinese restaurant in Britain specialising in the cooking of Shanghai (as opposed to, say, Canton or Beijing), can be a deeply salutary experience.
Take the Shanghai-style cold plate combination. In the middle lay a heap of shredded jellyfish, which looked exactly as one might imagine shredded jellyfish to look. To one side were some slices of pressed pig's ear; to the other, a pile of braised bean curd - and a few other things beside. My wife Pat looked at it, chopsticks poised. 'I feel like a two-year-old,' she said. 'I'm not sure I want to put any of it in my mouth.'
But, of course, we did. The jellyfish had a curious but not unpleasant texture; not slimy, but solid and with a real bite. As to the flavour, it was subtle and mostly of aromatics, such as the sesame and ginger in which it had been prepared. Beneath was a heap of shredded pickled vegetables. The bean curd was dense and dark and sweet and, oddly, a little like very tender beef. As to the pressed pig's ear, it was definitely one for the connoisseurs: more than a little rubbery but with a meaty edge, which was helped along by dips of a pungent mustard and a dark vinegar.
Clearly, the Capital does offer something entirely different to that available at the other Chinese places flanking it in London's Chinatown. It looks different too, with its stripped floor and clean, pale walls. (It's probably best not to look up - the ceiling is a shocking fuchsia that can be a bit oppressive.) Also, radically for Chinatown, service is attentive, if at times too efficient.
We moved on to a plate of Shanghai steamed juicy buns, partly, I'm afraid, because Pat thought the name was funny. Obviously she really was feeling like a two-year-old. They were fabulous constructions: a delicate white-sponge case held a heart of minced pork which somehow managed to be suspended in a clear savoury broth that exploded into our mouths as we bit into it (and, in my case, ran down my chin).
We ordered three main courses from the list of Shanghai specialities. The braised pork knuckle was exactly what it sounded like, a pig's knee joint, skin on, that had been cooked and cooked until even the bones were beginning to disintegrate. I thought the meat extraordinarily lush and rich, though members of my party complained it was a little fatty. Well, what did they expect? This knuckle had once belonged to a pig. Fatty comes with the territory. A hefty serving of what were described on the menu as 'clear friend prawns' had a thoroughly clean, fresh taste. Hand-pulled noodles with vegetables were rather thick and heavy, but that was only a question of taste. I happen to prefer my noodles thin.
There is also a menu of standard Chinese dishes, which looks identical to almost all the others on offer down the street, and from that we had some chicken with cashew nuts which were workmanlike. Curiously, it is that menu of standards which points up the Capital's raison d'être . Its exotica may not be what everybody wants all the time, but when you become bored with the usual, its time may come. It is, after all, reassuring that there's somewhere in Britain serving duck's feet and celery or a dish of pig's knuckle with jellyfish. You may not want to eat it, but it's good to know it's there.
