The cuisine of Jiangnan is celebrated at a new hotel restaurant, and Xu Junqian samples the mouth-watering ribs and more in Shanghai.

Chinese Jiangnan-style food is probably one of the most delicate and historical cuisines in the country that originated from south of the Yangtze River.

Different from its derivative, Shanghai cuisine, which is defined by its oiliness and heavy use of soy sauce and sugar, Jiangnan food is light, delightfully sweet and draws from a much wider selection of recipes from Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

You can try this cuisine at Yong Yi Ting, the Chinese restaurant at the newly opened Mandarin Oriental Pudong, Shanghai.

Deep-fried pomfret (above) is a highly recommended cold dish, while the braised beef rib (top) is a new version of a classic dish. Photos provided to China Daily

The menu was created by Lu Yiming, who is better known as Tony Lu, a local celebrity chef behind a string of Fu Shanghainese restaurants.

To get off to a good start, try the turnip soy chili, which is sure to make your meal "half satisfactory". The sour and spicy appetizer is called "a bite of crispiness" in Chinese, which perhaps does more justice to the dish.