Xiaolongbao first appeared around 1875, during the Ming Dynasty, in Nanxiang, a village on the northwestern outskirts of Shanghai. As the story goes, a vendor selling dry steamed buns decided to innovate due to stiff competition. Legend also suggests, however, that he copied the giant soupier dumplings from Nanjing. Whatever the case, there are several regional varieties of soup dumplings today, including Nanjing-style, which are actually called tāngbāo (汤包), literally meaning “soup bun,” and traditional Shanghainese xiǎolóngbāo, which have heartier wrappers that contain a larger pork meatball in a sweeter pork soup. Here are five of our favorite spots in Shanghai for soup dumplings of all strips.

Any Shanghai denizen who has lived in the city for longer than a few months worships at the altar of xiǎolóngbāo (小笼包). These steamed buns of goodness – tiny pork dumplings with a slurp of soup wrapped up in a wonton wrapper – provide delicious fodder for debates among Shanghai’s fiercest foodies.

Almost every Chinese holiday comes paired with a festive dish. At Tomb-Sweeping Festival, there are bright green qingtuan (glutinous rice dumplings) to celebrate the arrival of spring. During Dragon Boat festival, we have zongzi, stuffed sticky rice steamed in bamboo leaves, to commemorate the poet Qu Yuan. And during Mid-Autumn Festival, we chow down on mooncakes as we gaze at the full moon. But Chinese New Year doesn’t come with just one dish. It is a feast that lasts for days, starting with “bao”-ing or wrapping dumplings on Chinese New Year’s Eve (for snacking on well into the night) to the tangyuan (more glutinous rice dumplings) eaten 15 days later on Yuanxiao or Lantern Festival.

For the first time in 14 years, I have not left China for an entire calendar year – actually 620 days, but who’s counting? It’s a weird feeling, and one that makes me more than a little sad, so I’ve been trying to make up for it by eating delicious food as often as possible. Luckily, Shanghai was spared the brunt of the pandemic. The shutdown was never an official lockdown in China’s financial capital, although very few restaurants were given official permission to offer in-person in early 2020. Shanghai didn’t shut down in 2021 either, and while some restaurants went bankrupt, the pandemic pushed other great local spots into offering delivery services when they never had before.

Looking for the best Shanghai-style noodles, for the city’s most slurpable strands? From hairy crab specialists to the sesame sauce of your dreams, there’s something for everyone. Come prepared to chow down, but don’t forget there’ll be a wait at most of these joints. Reservations are not available for these mom-and-pop owned shops, and demand for these nostalgic flavors is high, especially during the breakfast and lunch rush.

Ever since former President Deng Xiaoping opened China’s economic doors to the rest of the world starting in 1979, foreigners wishing to do business in China have had to find a local partner to form a joint venture company. Though no longer a hard-and-fast requirement, that’s still the modus operandi at Lotus Eatery, where a founding partnership brings together the best of both culinary worlds: unusual yet authentic local flavors and distinctly foreign notions of consistent quality and attentive service.

Historically, Guizhou is one of China’s most overlooked provinces. The landlocked location in central China is sandwiched between the famous spice havens of Sichuan and Chongqing to the north and Hunan to the East, and tucked behind the tourist destination of Yunnan to the west. It has the largest population of people in poverty and lowest income per person in China, and the geography of the province has made it tough to travel around; mountainous roads and lack of infrastructure don’t make for easy tourism. Its biggest claim to fame has been Kweichow Moutai (Wade-Giles Romanization of Guizhou Maotai), the famous state-owned baijiu brand served to Richard Nixon when he met Mao Zedong.

In the sections of China’s Jiangsu Province where Huaiyang cuisine reigns supreme, autumn is marked not by yellow and red foliage or falling temperatures. The change in seasons instead comes when restaurants post hairy crab (大闸蟹 Dàzháxiè) menus and shops selling baked goods the rest of the year pivot to aquariums full of the live crabs trying to scale the glass walls. Peak hairy crab season falls during the ninth and tenth lunar month of the year. In 2017, that means from October 20 until December 17. But when we arrived at Yangcheng Lake – a hairy crab mecca – before China’s National Holiday on October 1, the lake was already lined with hawkers wrapping the live crabs with twine and selling them to hungry tourists.

In Shanghai, it’s not uncommon to see a queue for what can often turn out to be mediocre food. Restaurants, street food stands and milk tea stalls will even go so far as to hire “yellow bulls” (scalpers) to line up and create buzz for their products. So, it was with some suspicion we took notice of a line of people for weeks on end outside a community center around lunchtime. Curiosity got the best of us, and we discovered the hottest table in town: a subsidized canteen for elderly residents of the neighborhood – inside a heritage garden villa, no less. In 1932, 66 Wutong Yard was as a parsonage for the Shanghai Community Church priests that was designed by the city’s most famous art deco architect, Lazlo Hudec.

Legend has it that huangjiu, or yellow wine, was invented by Du Kang, the god of Chinese alcohol. Annual production starts in eastern China’s Shaoxing region in the tenth lunar month – the temperature and humidity at that time of year create the best environment for making the wine – with sacrifices to Du Kang. The wine is made from fermenting glutinous rice with wheat or rice qu, a cake of mashed grains that cultivate yeast; both convert the starch to sugar then to alcohol. The product of all that fermentation is a sherry-like amber liquid that is used in Chinese cooking or served as a drink paired with Chinese foods.

We’ve been fans of the authentically spicy flavors of La Wei Xian since 2014, when we added the ramshackle restaurant to our Night Eats tour route in the Laoximen neighborhood. The stop was a favorite of our guests for years, but in August 2017, Mr. Liu fell victim to the redevelopment of the Old Town area and was forced to shut down his shop when the local government wouldn’t renew his food and beverage licenses. But Mr. Liu has never been one to give up, and he’s always got his eye on the bottom line. He is the type of guy who will spend hours trying to convince you to go on a four-day road trip with his whole family (totaling six members) back to his hometown of Zigong, Sichuan, in a Winnebago that is meant for two at best, just to split the gas money.

The relative abundance of heritage architecture and mixed zoning in the former French Concession neighborhood (technically the Xuhui district) has left a legacy of nooks and crannies where a number of mom-and-pop noodle shops are able to withstand the test of time and pressures of a fast-changing economy. Luckily, enough noodle lovers are still craving the classics and will queue up to support their favorite local haunts. Our top five picks can get crowded, but if you avoid the main lunch rush from noon to 1 p.m., you shouldn’t have to fight (too hard) for a seat.