Over the weekend, while biking to Shanghai's Silk Market, Jacob and I got lost in a maze of side streets. This was a side of Shanghai visitors seldom see. We rode past a few "free-range" chickens (with feet leashed to a pole, to prevent straying) pecking on some dirty lettuce. On the other side of the road was a scene that would never pass American health inspection, but which made my heart skip a beat.

Open air duck roasting! Now, I think Peking duck is a neat art form, but the elaborateness of the preparation, ordering, and eating gets tiring after the 20th time. Some days you just want a crispy, juicy duck without the fuss. For example, one you can pick up while whizzing by on a bike.

So what does the inside of the metal inferno look like?

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Travelers to Shanghai sometimes expect to find a vibrant street food scene that's on par with that of Bangkok, Singapore, Chengdu, and other tropical or subtropical Asian cities. But because of a northern-ish climate (despite the Beijing tendency to think of Shanghai as "the south") and a culture that prefers indoor eating, good street food is hard to find. Zhongshan Lu has a few lamb skewer vendors, but is mainly a tourist trap for shopping and glitzy lights. Yuyuan Bazaar, home of the over-hyped Nanxiang soup dumplings, is just a tourist trap, period.

One place is Shanghai that locals actually frequent is the Muslim market in northern Jing'an, held only on Fridays after prayer service at the Huxi mosque. Starting around 11am, vendors set up their stands of cooked lamb, nan, dried nuts and fruit, and Arabic DVDs. Not to disparage Han ethnic culture, but sometimes it's nice to plant myself in a spot where the locals don't look or speak like the 1.3 billion majority.

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