Shanghai Eats Part I

Hmm... my Shanghai food report is long overdue... My trouble has been that every time I sit down to put this post together, my stomach starts growling. Then I start craving steamed buns and sesame pancakes, get distracted, and drift off to the kitchen.... Must... focus...


Over the course of 4 days of eating in Shanghai, we subsisted on a combination of snacks from street carts, small dishes from canteens and the occasional restaurant meal. Our eating adventures in Shanghai inspired me to make the admittedly not-very-scientific graph above. The x-axis is cost in yuan and the y-axis represents deliciousness. Would the inverse curve here remain true if we were to stay in Shanghai a little longer to sample more of the city's culinary offerings? I've no idea, but it doesn't seem like it would cost us TOO much money to make a second trip to Shanghai to find out... ^_^

First, a little street eatin'...

1. Da Bing (大餅), 2. Steamed pork bun, 3. Bowl of rice and chili paste, 4. Da bing, 5. Steamed vegetable buns, 6. Fresh bamboo shoots, 7. Sheng1jian1 Man2tou (生煎饅頭), 8. Dou4fu3 Hua4 (豆腐花), 9. Chun1juan3 (春卷), 10. ...Three!, 11. Níu ròu lā miàn (牛肉拉麵), 12. Hmph

Sesame pancakes (大餅 / Dà bǐng) 3元 (US$0.43)
On our walks around Shanghai we saw numerous carts selling dà bǐng -- a sesame-encrusted, flat, round bread -- in varying sizes. Smaller versions were about 5 or 6 inches across and thin. At other carts, they were thick (like focaccia bread) and large (the size of a medium pizza). Our favorites were the ones from 皇中皇大饼 (Huáng Zhōng Huáng Dà Bǐng) a little stand along Renmin Road in the French Concession, near the hospital. On the back of the paper wrapper I noticed they listed numerous locations throughout Shanghai. The dà bǐng here, small and thin, looked humble enough on the outside but the filling of salt, pepper and oil within its flaky folds delivered a surprisingly savory punch to the tastebuds. I did some Googling around after we got home and discovered that dà bing, called "nang" in the Uighur language, is a typical Chinese Muslim breakfast, with roots in the Middle Eastern and South Asian flatbread known as "naan."

Fried buns (生煎饅頭 / Shēngjiān mántou) 4元 (US$0.58)
Shēngjiān mántou are small, pan-seared buns with pork filling. In nearly every neighborhood of Shanghai, you'll find little canteens, some with only a few plastic tables, serving this distinctly Shanghainese breakfast. To avoid searing the roof of your mouth, take a tiny little bite first -- just enough to make a small hole and drain the flavorful soup into your spoon. Then you can pop the whole thing in your mouth to enjoy the contrast of crunchy fried skin to juicy, savory interior. Follow up by drinking your spoonful of meaty soup before moving on to the next bun. They are usually served four buns to a dish -- good if you're a party of 2 or 4, but if there are 3 of you you'll have to fight for the last one. As with most fried things, it's best to have these when they're hot and fresh off the grill, when the crisply toasted skin has not yet been permeated by the bun's hot soupy filling.

Tofu pudding (豆腐花 / Dòufǔ hùa)
Literally "bean-curd flower," dòufǔ hùa is a pudding-like dish of extra-soft tofu. Although I've had dòufǔ hùa growing up -- it was one of my grandma's favorite foods -- I'd only experienced it as a dim-sum dessert, topped with syrup or honey. According to Wikipedia, the savory, soy-sauce-doused incarnation seen above is a Northern Chinese style of preparation. In Northern China, it's also known as dòufǔ nāo (豆腐腦), literally "bean curd brains." Ha ha! That always makes me laugh... tofu don't have brains! Do they? But I'll happily have tofu brains any 'ol time... After I put the first bite of savory tofu in my mouth and the silken bean curd, soy sauce, vinegar, green onions and pickled vegetables concoction slid effortlessly down my throat, I couldn't stop until the bowl was completely drained.

Spring rolls (春卷 / Chūnjuǎn)
I'm usually not crazy about spring rolls -- they're too dry for my taste, and it seems a rare occasion when they are actually made with fresh ingredients. But the innocent-looking fried rolls we had at one Shanghai canteen had -- surprise! -- soup inside. As with the fried buns that we'd had at the same establishment, the delightful contrast between crispy skin vs. soupy interior made for a delicious and intriguing textural experience. I'm starting to sense that the Shanghainese like putting soup inside things. Here's a little recipe to keep the insides of your spring rolls juicy.

Beef Ramen (牛肉拉麵 / Níuròu lā miàn) 5元 (US$0.73)
Although "lā miàn" literally means "hand-pulled noodles," when you see the words on a Chinese menu the name is all-too-often a historical reference while the actual noodles that land before you have been rendered into existence by machine. My first experiences of ramen noodles were the instant, MSG-laden, "Gung Jai (Doll) Mien (Noodles)" packages that my mom would use to bribe us into being good little kids. In subsequent, better, incarnations of lamian / ramen that I've tried, it was often the soup that stood out while the noodles always seemed to be the same flavorless, dry, machine-cut strands. Despite those past experiences, when we saw 拉麵 on the menu, somehow we knew we were in for something good. With one shlurp, I understood what those ubiquitous instant ramen noodles are SUPPOSED to taste like. Meaty aromatic broth, fresh cilantro, lightly boiled slivers of beef AND -- finally -- chewy, hand-stretched noodles cooked to perfection... heaven! Check out some noodle-pulling action on YouTube.

Knife-shaved beef noodles (牛肉刀削麵 / Níuròu dāoxīao miàn) 7元 (US$1.00)
A few months ago, I read Lin Liu's memoir / cookbook, "Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China" and salivated upon learning of "dāoxiāo miàn." These noodles have their origins in western China and are shaped by shaving a block of dough into boiling water. So, when we passed a small Halal canteen near Jingan Temple with a pot of burbling water out front, we immediately knew this was where we could finally try knife-shaved noodles. Upon our order, the requisite amount of noodle dough was immediately peeled into the giant vat. Our noodle-maker, only a teenage boy, had a quick wrist and an innate sense of noodle-timing. Minutes later, he ladled the perfectly cooked noodles out of the pot and into a bowl of aromatic beef soup. Our noodles -- topped with cilantro and thin slices of beef -- had the not-too-hard, not-too-soft, perfectly-chewy texture that only hand-made, freshly-cooked noodles could have.
Check out some expert noodle-shaving on YouTube.

Scallion pancakes (蔥油餅 / Cōng yóu bing)
If you're exploring Shanghai streets tourist-style with a camera in hand, a hot-off-the-grill scallion pancake can be the perfect one-hand snack to nourish your wanderings.... But I have a word of advice about scallion pancakes. I'm pretty sure that they are fairly similar in quality regardless of where you go, but just make sure they are frying up fresh ones when you order. A scallion pancake that has been cooling on a rack for a while isn't very satisfying...

Steamed bun (包子 / Bāozi ) .7元 (US$0.10)
As we explored the Old Town, we happened upon a street stall fielding a constant stream of customers. The shop was tiny but it was filled front to back with steamers of buns in varying states of preparation -- awaiting steaming, being steamed, just-finished steaming. They had veggie, preserved veggie and pork fillings, and we went for one of each. Nothing hits the spot like a freshly steamed bun; I didn't even know that I had been craving a steamed bun until I took that first bite and heard my taste-buds cheer! There's something dreamy about how each ball of soft, perfectly airy, steamed dough lovingly envelopes a saucy burst of flavor. Heaven at just .70元 (10 U.S. cents) a bun!