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Shanghai
Shanghai's culinary record
In 2017, Shanghai’s longest-running open-air market at Tangjiawan Lu, which had provided the neighborhood with fresh produce, fish and seasonal foodstuffs for almost 115 years, shuttered its doors. The market and much of the area around the Laoximen metro station were some of the last historical (albeit run-down) structures in an otherwise central area full of expensive new residences. Construction has already begun on the entire city block’s worth of high-rises being built in its place, and the surrounding blocks – like many of Shanghai’s backstreets – are on notice, as the wrecking balls and construction crews continue to reshape the urban landscape at an incredibly fast rate.
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Shanghai
Ben Lai & Ben Zhen: The Other Sichuan
Sichuan cuisine is famous for its mouth-numbing, spicy flavors, but what many people don’t know is that the provincial cuisine is subdivided into several specialty subregional cuisines. One of our favorites is Xiaohe Sichuan cuisine, which hails from the cities of Zigong, Luzhou and Yibin in the province’s southern region. Originally famous for its salt mining, the Xiaohe (which means “small river”) region is now perhaps best known for the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, a monumental museum built over a dig site that’s had an incredible number of dinosaur finds. But the local cuisine – renowned for being spicy and creative – is worth exploring.
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Fu Chun Xiao Long: Shanghai Snack Attack
We’ve raved about the Shanghai-style soup dumplings at Fu Chun for years now, but let us let you in on a secret: There’s more to this tiny hole-in-the-wall than its xiaolongbao. Since 1959, the restaurant has been serving up benbang dishes, but little has changed on the menu or in the kitchen. A Huaiyang snack shop, Fu Chun admittedly skews Shanghainese in its regional flavor profile, which means extra sugar and a lot of pork. Try the traditional deep-fried pork cutlet (炸猪排, zhà zhūpái). Pounded thin before hitting the deep fryer, these fatty flanks are served sliced with a side of black rice vinegar – a dip helps cut the grease.
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Yang Yang’s Dumplings: The Other Yang
Search online for Shanghai’s best fried dumplings, and you’ll come up with hundreds of results extolling Yang’s Fried Dumplings. Though it was once just a humble shop sandwiched between the Bund and People’s Square, the online renown and ensuing crowds have propelled the brand into chain-store ubiquity, populating new malls and shopping streets with fervor. In essence, they’ve become the Starbucks of dumplings; you’re going to get a relatively consistent product, but come on, you can do so much better! Enter Yang Yang’s.
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Jianbing: Loved Abroad, Threatened at Home
When we set out to create a foodie “holiday” this past April for jianbing, one of China’s most-loved street snacks, we didn’t know quite what to expect. Our aim with World Jianbing Day, which included giveaways and a social media campaign encouraging people to add their favorite jianbing spots in China and abroad to a crowd-sourced map, was to build awareness outside the typical jianbing consumer base. Locals who grew up with and already love the snack don’t need much reminding about the virtues of the perfectly balanced crepe from northern China. But everyone else? They need to know about the sweet, crunchy, pickled, spicy and salty elements all wrapped up in one convenient burrito-crepe-style to-go snack.
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Wenxiang Manchurian Dumpling House: Fishy Business
When it comes to Chinese dumplings, fish is likely not the first filling that springs to mind. But that’s probably because you haven’t had the chance to try Liaoning province’s specialty: boiled mackerel dumplings. Dishes from Liaoning, which is located northeast of Beijing, fall under the regional umbrella of Dongbei (northeastern) cuisine. The staple grain up north is wheat and corn, with noodles, steamed breads and dumpling wrappers supplying most of the carbs in the local diet. The area wraps around the coastline of the Yellow Sea, bringing fresh seafood to the table, and its proximity to the Korean Peninsula means an abundance of pickled veggies.
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Taiwanese Pork Rice: Balancing Act
Shanghai doesn’t fit the traditional (if often false) narrative that urban spaces consist of “good” neighborhoods and “bad” neighborhoods. Crime is not a major concern for most residents in the city, and truly derelict areas are few and far between. However, the varying levels of development and infrastructure create different zones that deeply impact residents’ lifestyles in ways that are more extreme than in other more developed countries. On a recent weekend road trip to Moganshan, a mountainous oasis of bamboo forests just a few hours from Shanghai, the starkness of the city’s “development zones” came to light as we made our way home to the tree-lined streets of the former French Concession
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A Da Cong You Bing: New Home, Same Cult Pancake
In September of last year, Shanghai eaters were shocked when Mr. Wu shuttered A Da Cong You Bing, the city’s best scallion pancake shop. The only explanation for the abrupt closure was a worn sign on the door that read: “My family has a problem. The stall will be closed for a few days.” But this wasn’t the whole truth. Some attributed the shutdown to the fact that the stall was featured on the BBC program Rick Stein’s Taste of Shanghai, claiming that it had drawn too much attention to the unlicensed vendor and the government had taken note.
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Liu Tang Men: Chengdu Noodles, Done Right
In the past year, we’ve seen more new noodle houses hawking spicy Chengdu and Chongqing style noodles than we can count on two hands. Very few of the Shanghai-based noodle houses do the fly restaurants of Chengdu justice. Some dish out bowls of insipid strands that barely register on the Scoville scale, while others go for that unbalanced, burn-your-face-off flare that means the chef has likely never been to Sichuan, much less studied the careful art of the region’s balanced cooking. Liu Dao Men is among the exceptions, carefully walking the tightrope of spicy yet tasty, with its menu of Chengdu noodle classics.
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Zifantuan: Belle of the Rice Ball
One of the seven necessities of Chinese daily life, rice is eaten in many forms throughout the day, including – and especially – at breakfast. Congee is undoubtedly China’s best-known breakfast food, but less famous globally, and wildly popular locally, is the unassuming rice ball (饭团, fàn tuán).
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Visual Dispatches from the Frontlines of Local Eating
Shanghai Videos

The noodleman at Shanghai's Henan Lamian

Shanghai Jianbing

Fava season in Shanghai's markets

A stroll through Shanghai's Tangjiawan Lu "wet market"

The Noodle "Breakdancer" at Shanghai's Hai Di Lao
Culinary Backstreets® Envoys, Always Searching for the Next Hidden Gem
Meet Our Shanghai Team

Jamie
Shanghai Correspondent

Kyle
Shanghai Correspondent