When Cleveland-native Andy Husney set out for China at age 20 to teach English, he never would have believed that he would live there for the next decade, or, for that matter, open a Mexican restaurant. Husney initially came in 2012 for a one-year gig teaching English in Shenyang, located in China’s northeast Liaoning Province. But after that wrapped up, inspired by some friends and a desire to experience the culinary history of China, he made his way to Chengdu – recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a Creative City of Gastronomy, the capital of Sichuan province is also one of the capitals of Chinese cuisine.

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.

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.

If you hadn’t read the flyer closely before heading to Shanghai’s first ever MeatFest last month, you might have been a bit disappointed upon arrival. The sounds and smells of sizzling meat might have seemed like a carnivore’s dream come true, but the name was tongue in cheek; the event was thrown by Vegans of Shanghai for “eco-conscious meat lovers” and served only domestically sourced plant-based “meat” products. It’s part of a bigger push towards eating a plant-based diet in China, where vegetarians make up less than 5% of the population. But even at such a low rate, that still comes out to approximately 50 million people (a population larger than that of Spain). Historically vegetarianism is rooted in Buddhist or Taoist beliefs but, like recently in the West, the meat-free lifestyle in China has become less about religion and more focused on health and being environmentally friendly – and millennials are leading the pack.

Mall dining in Asia is nothing like its American counterpart, thanks mostly to the humid climates of Singapore and Hong Kong. These two islands have tunnels and bridges connecting malls throughout the cities, making them easy to traverse while staying inside the air-conditioned environment. When temperatures spike – as they do on most days – crowds flock to the malls; the restaurants have followed suit. You can eat everything from excellent snack food to Michelin-starred meals in malls in Hong Kong and Singapore. But what does all that have to do with Shanghai?

The recent loss of the world’s first baijiu-themed bar, Beijing’s Capital Spirits, to hutong landlord issues has refocused the spirit’s lens on Shanghai, where bars are incorporating the grain alcohol into their drinks program. Baijiu may be the most-consumed spirit in the world – thanks mostly to China’s massive population – but its name has only recently started to make waves outside the country. This growing recognition is in part thanks to the trend of mixing baijiu into cocktails. At Healer Bar, this blending of Eastern flavors with Western drinking culture is a deliberate choice that is meant to educate as well as inebriate. Before owner Phoebe Han opened her bar, the Xi’an-native mixed cocktails with some of the city’s best bartenders at Kee Club, The Nest and The Apartment, but she wanted to change the way people perceived Chinese spirits.

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.

On our “Street Eats Breakfast” walk in Shanghai, we stop for jiānbǐng (煎饼), sometimes called Chinese crepes, flapjacks or burritos. Served up streetside on flat griddles, these millet flour pancakes are topped with scrambled eggs, cilantro, green onions and pickled mustard tubers and then slathered in umami-laden soybean paste and spicy chili flakes.

Legend has it that huangjiu, or yellow wine, was invented by Du Kang, the god of Chinese alcohol. Because huangjiu is fermented, the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) benefits of the drink are legion, and include “invigorating the blood.” You can see for yourself if that’s the case on our Night Eats tour in Shanghai.

Shanghai usually opts for trendy over traditional, and 2018 was no different. Dining and drinking “hotspots” tended to appear in the slew of newly-opened ultra-lux five-star hotels, including the Middle House, Edition, Sukkothai and BVLGARI hotels, to name just a few. In the everyday budget range, we’re still seeing mom-and-pop shops struggle to survive the tight real estate market and licensing battles with city officials. With yet another western-style bakery opening up and replacing our neighborhood Hunan joint, we’re left hoping that maybe 2018 was also the year of “peak” bread and coffee. It seems that trendy coffee shops are taking over any slice of open real estate.

Because of its location, topography and climate, Yunnan province resembles little of what many Westerners think of as “China.” The north is home to mountainous forests full of wild mushrooms and tribes tending goats, while down south tropical flowers and fruits grow in the hot, humid lowlands. More than 25 of China’s 55 state-recognized minority groups live in the province, and the cooking of each tribe has its own distinct flavors and characteristics. Yunnan cuisine is known formally as Dian Cai (滇菜), after the kingdom that resided on the Yunnan plateau more than two millennia ago. This southwestern province borders Tibet and Sichuan to the north and Burma, Laos and Vietnam to the south.

Don’t tell it to French winemakers, but in 2015, the Chinese wine industry hit a major milestone by narrowly surpassing France in land dedicated to vineyards. With 7,990 square kilometers of grape-growing land concentrated mostly in China’s north-central and northwestern regions, the country now ranks second only to Spain and holds almost 11 percent of the world’s vineyards by land area. Most experts estimate that the vast majority of these vineyards grow grapes for the table, not wine, but the statistic follows the trend of wine’s growing popularity in the Middle Kingdom. And China is now among the top 10 wine-producing countries in the world.

Bāozi (包子), or steamed buns, are a basic, on-the-go meal. Yeast is added to wheat dough, which is allowed to rise. The dough is then stuffed with a raw filling (everything plain pork to egg custard), wrapped by hand using a pinching style until closed and placed on top of boiling water in towers of giant bamboo steamers.

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

In & Out arrived in Beijing years ago to rave reviews, but the Yunnan restaurant only just settled in Shanghai, confusing homesick Californians with its name. Instead of Double-Double burgers and Animal-Style fries, it serves cross-the-bridge noodles (过桥米线, guòqiáo mǐxiàn) and fried potato balls (土豆球, tǔdòu qiú). While most Yunnan restaurants in China span the whole province’s cuisine, from tea leaf salads to crispy adzuki beans, In & Out’s menu is (mostly) specific to Lijiang, a city deemed a UNESCO heritage site that lies about halfway between Shangri-La and Kunming, the provincial capital, and is home to the Naxi and several other ethnic minorities.