When we describing food with the term of “Di Dao” in Chinese, which means the food is exactly the same with the food of our hometown. This is very hard for every restaurants that are trying to reproduce the local cuisine, because when it comes to food every Chinese will become a picky one.
People could easily find food from their hometown in Shanghai because of the fast developing logistic industry and the diversity of people in a city. However, lots of them find that these food are not “Di Dao” enough, which is not comparable to the food they have back in their home town.
Many people that come to a different city for work or study purposes are expecting to find the food that will satisfy their taste buds with hometown characteristics. Though the adroit chef could copy the dishes exactly like what they look like back in people’s hometowns, they could not imitate the local flavor and the bound between people and their own hometown. Chinese attach great importance and meaning to their hometown food culture. For example, individuals from Inner Mongolia Prairie, would still have a kind of nostalgia feeling even when they are eating the lamb that mailed from Inner Mongolia Prairie. This is because he/she is not breathing the air of that vast prairie. The lack of the feeling of “local” makes people have a sense of loss.
In fact, though it is not possible for people to eat the actually “Di Dao” food in a different city, lots of people are still willing to go to the restaurants that creates an atmosphere of “Di Dao.” It might become more like a commercial promotion instead of actually meeting people’s desire to experience both the local atmosphere and the techniques used by the local chefs of their hometown. However, I personally very appreciate the efforts that the restaurants devote to create the atmosphere of “Di Dao.” For instance, Nanjing Sidewalk Snack Booth is a restaurant that serves snacks from Jiangsu Prov. especially from Nanjing. Its decoration is a reminiscent of old Nanjing, and the waiters have special outfits that give people strong impressions of old Nanjing.
Another thing I want to mention is that the local people will always face the question of their friends that comes from other cities about where can I eat the most local (Di Dao) cuisine. Usually, local people will take them to the restaurants according to the maps in their mind that was polished since they were born. However, it might be hard for exotic people to accept the “Di Dao” food. For example, there are some famous local cuisine that include lots of insects, which is not friendly for the people first try to taste the local food. Then the local people will turn to take their friends to the restaurants that creates an atmosphere of “Di Dao,” and this will satisfy their friend. This is because they do not have a sense of “Di Dao” as the local people do.
In conclusion, it is impossible to perfectly reproduce local food, but there are still some techniques for people to recreate a sense of home to a greater extent, which might be a sense of “Di Dao.”
As Farrer mentioned in Food and Cities, life in the Asian city is increasingly organized by regimens of body discipline, often centering on dieting and weight control. While some food could be the vehicle for conveying urban nostalgia, salad could be a vehicle that convey a sense of modern, health and fitness. Fitness became the new faith of the modern cities and salad became a kind of panacea for people to lose weight and gain fitness. The increasing need for salad ignites a boom in salad restaurants because lots of people want to make money by selling salad. We could see the data from Eleme app that the sales of salad in 2019 were 61% higher than in 2018. However, it is hard for those who want to succeed in this salad sales competition. As a consumer, I have found that lots of salad stores disappear from the list of food delivery apps and lots of new salad stores appear. 
Secondly, the cost of renting could also bother those salad shop owners. Because of the development of online food delivery apps, lots of the physical stores could not compete with those salad shops based online who use small shared kitchen rental service to reduce rent. An in-store salad shop is much more expensive, risky and less efficient than a take-out shop, because of the higher rent and more salaries paid for the waiter/waitress. However, because of the lack of regulation, salad made in those small shared kitchens have no quality assurance. Lots of apps had to compulsorily shut down those shops that did not meet the health requirements to prevent food poisoning. 
