SHANGHAI PAVILION
1378 Third Ave.
212-585-3388

As a rule, we New Yorkers are an expedient bunch. We’re not used to grand banquets that take weeks to prepare and another week or two to consume. But if you crave a reasonable facsimile of a properly august, Shanghai-style banquet, the place to find it is at Shanghai Pavilion, on the Upper East Side. The restaurant’s prix fixe banquet feast starts at $70 per head, and you must call a day ahead to secure delicacies like Beggar’s Chicken (chicken baked for hours on end in lotus leaves and a shell of clay) or Eight Treasure Partridge, which is a single bird delicately stuffed with chestnuts, among many, many other things. If partridge isn’t your cup of tea, don’t fear. The waiters let us add Shanghai soup dumplings to our banquet, and a fine uptown version of Peking duck.