Confucius once said, “The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.” He clearly never met a food writer, because superlatives and immodest speech are basically all we have to work with. But had Confucius opened a small patisserie, it would probably be Lillian Cake Shop.

Shouning Lu is known as Crawfish Street, with street food vendors often stewing, grilling and frying up the same seafood dishes up and down the one-block stretch. But there’s one land-lubbing vendor that has carved out a niche for itself: Ǎizi Xiànbǐng (矮子馅饼), or Dwarf’s Pastries.

Since we last wrote about the best places for a cuppa back in 2014, Shanghai has become the city with the third-highest number of Starbucks in the world, and these new shops serve flat whites and cold brews from an interactive barista bar. We should expect more of these fancy cafés, as the Seattle coffee chain is planning to double its current number of stores in China by 2019 – going from zero to 3,000 in 20 years.