This story is part of a new bi-weekly column, Lunch Money, where staff writer Lena Geller visits restaurants in the Triangle in an attempt to dine out for less than $15.
When I step into Shanghai, Durham’s oldest operating Chinese restaurant, the hostess beckons me toward her stand. “See that booth?” she asks. “Go, and I will follow.”
I head to the booth she’s pointing at, tucked in a back corner next to a bookshelf stocked with wine bottles and silk foliage, and slide in. I’m cocooned beneath a red and gold ceiling adorned with ornate dragon medallions…