It’s pouring rain in Shanghai today, so the city is a sea of wet umbrellas. ☔️ 

This morning’s agenda: a walking food tour of Shanghai. Ken was worried we were going to be eating chicken feet. He wasn’t completely wrong. 

I believe you can learn almost everything about a place by looking at what people eat and drink. People eat and drink what grows nearby, what survives the climate, what trade brings into the ports, and what their grandmother has been making the same way for a hundred and sixty years.

Shanghai is no exception.

Shanghai sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River, where freshwater rivers meet the East China Sea. For centuries, this made it one of China’s busiest trading ports. Merchants arrived with spices, ingredients, cooking techniques, and money. Lots of money. Over time, Shanghai became China’s financial powerhouse, and the cuisine followed suit.

The food here tends to be slightly sweeter than in many other parts of China. Soy sauce is used generously, and sugar shows up where you might not expect it.

If you’ve spent your life believing Chinese food means General Tso’s Chicken, you’ve been missing out.

Our Day in Food

Our guide, Lucy, took us far, far away from the tourist streets- to all the spots where the locals eat – which is always where the best food lives.

One of the greatest contributions to world food culture is the Chinese bao – delicious things stuffed inside delicious dough. That’s peak civilization right there. 

I quickly discovered that bao isn’t one steamed bun, it’s an entire universe of steamed buns. I was familiar with bao as that fluffy white bun with pork in it. But it’s so much more than that. Here are the bao Lucy chose for us to taste – we went to a different street food vendor for each one. Because apparently you specialize in a particular bao, you don’t offer all of them.

Baozi (Steamed Bao)

These are the fluffy steamed buns most people think of when they hear “bao.” In Shanghai, they’re breakfast food: inexpensive, portable, and built for eating on the go.

They can be filled with pork, cabbage, vegetables, mushrooms, tofu – basically anything that improves when tucked inside a warm cloud of dough. And they are incredible. I would absolutely eat these for breakfast every morning.

America is missing a major business opportunity here: drive-through bao.

Xiaolongbao (Soup Dumplings)

If Shanghai had a mascot, it would be the soup dumpling.

Thin-skinned, pleated on top with somewhere around 18 precise folds, and filled with minced pork and a hot broth that is somehow inside the dumpling. The broth isn’t injected – it starts as a gelatinized meat stock that’s solid when cold, mixed into the filling, and melts into soup when steamed. The result is a small package of genius.

You are supposed to nibble a tiny bite, sip the broth, then eat the dumpling gracefully.

Another method is to bite into it, and get the scalding hot soup all over your face.

Shao Mai (Sticky Rice Dumpling)

This was one of my favorite bao of the day. It’s sticky rice and mushrooms wrapped in a dumpling wrapper. It’s a carbohydrate masterpiece. Somehow richer than I expected from rice and mushrooms. If I wasn’t already full when we tried these, I could have eaten more than one.

Sidebar: All of these bao/dumplings are not only delicious and filling, but cheap. Shockingly cheap. We ate our way through an entire food tour for what amounted to a few dollars. 

Shengjian Bao (the one with the crispy bottom)

These are bao that are steamed and fluffy on top, and fried and crispy on the bottom. Next level delicious. They are usually stuffed with seasoned pork mixed with gelatinized broth. As the buns cook, that broth melts into soup, so the center becomes wonderfully juicy – similar to a soup dumpling, but wrapped in a thicker, yeasted dough.

Soup Break

We stopped for beef curry noodle soup at what Lucy said was Shanghai’s best place for it – Da Ha Chun, a Shanghai favorite for almost a century. The soup itself was pretty good, but they ruined it with the cilantro. I was hoping China wasn’t a cilantro country.

Dou Sha Bao (Red Bean Paste Bun)

Now, we’re into the dessert buns. Dou sha bao is a sweet bun with red bean paste inside. It’s one of China’s favorite sweet buns, and it’s been a breakfast treat for generations. And it’s so good. It’s sweet, but mildly sweet – a little more earthy and nutty rather than sugary like a frosting.

Ken wasn’t crazy about these, but I loved them.

Hei Zhi Ma Bao (Black Sesame Bao)

I’ll admit this one kind of scared me. All I could think about was how many sesame seeds I was going to be picking out of my teeth for the rest of the afternoon. Honestly, delicious. The filling is darker and toastier than I thought it would be (I was expecting a something cloyingly sweet).

Cong You Bing (Pork and Scallion Pancake)

OK, I’m really full now. We’ve got to be getting close to the end of the bao parade.

Next, we needed to taste what Lucy described as the precursor to the bao – a pork and scallion pancake, baked inside what looked like a very hot wooden barrel. Incredible.

To get to this place, we went down (and down and down) into the Shanghai subway system. Btw, there are over 500 stops on the Shanghai subway. And Lucy was moving OUT. She had one speed, and it was not tourist with wet umbrella. I looked at Ken and said, “do NOT lose her, or we will never find our way back to the ship.” 

Sidebar: The scooter situation here is madness. Hundreds of scooters on the streets – they stop for nothing and no one. Do not get in their way.

Saw (and Smelled), But Did Not Eat

We asked Lucy if she would take us to a local Shanghai market – the not for tourists kind of market. This is where we saw the foods Shanghai people eat on the regular. Americans tend to be fairly picky about which parts of an animal end up on our dinner plate. Shanghai people? Not so picky. 

Travel has a funny way of reminding you that disgusting and delicious are often separated by nothing more than the latitude where you were born.

Chicken Feet

A hugely popular snack in Shanghai for the locals. They are supposed to be an excellent source of collagen. Lucy said they taste like garlic. I’ll just have to take her word for it. Because these things have toenails. Just imagine the crunch. Nope. I’m not eating toenails. Garlic flavored or not.

Duck Tongues

Who the hell first looked at a duck and thought – you know what we’re wasting here? Mouth parts. Every conceivable way to say no. Lucy said children eat them like lollipops. You know what else is good to eat like lollipops? Lollipops.

Century Egg

Despite the name, century eggs are not actually a hundred years old. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that someone looked at an ordinary egg and thought, You know what this needs? Several weeks of controlled chemical decomposition.

Century eggs are preserved for a few months in a mixture of clay, ash, lime, and salt. Seriously? Who is responsible for this recipe?? The eggs are “done” when the egg white turns into translucent black jelly, and the yolk becomes a creamy shade of swamp green.

This is the least convincing sales pitch ever made for eggs. And, they smell like ammonia.

If I found an egg that looked like this in the back of my refrigerator, I would throw away the egg, the carton, the shelf it was sitting on, and maybe the refrigerator itself. In China, they slice it up, drizzle it with soy sauce, and serve it as an appetizer.

I just . . . no.

Stinky Tofu

Oooof. Stinky tofu is aptly named. You smell it way before you see it. I’m convinced stinky tofu started as a dare that got out of hand: what’s the absolute worst smell we can convince people is delicious?

It smells like someone left a gym sock in a dumpster behind a sewage treatment plant on a hundred degree day, then decided to deep-fry it. You ever need to clear a room? Bring some stinky tofu.

Allegedly, stinky tofu doesn’t taste nearly as bad as it smells. But your nose is saying, absolutely not. Something has died.

Lucy says most Shanghai people consider stinky tofu comfort food. I’m not sure what’s comforting about this smell. I asked her if she liked it. Her response? She wrinkled up her face and shook her head, no.

I will take a cue from our host and take the hardest of passes on the stinky tofu.

Jiuniang Tangyuan (Sticky Rice in Wine)

While we were walking through the locals only market (and after the stinky tofu smell dissipated), I was distracted by this colorful dish that looked like something for children. I asked Lucy if I could try it.

This is jiuniang tangyuan, or sticky rice balls in wine. Lucy said it’s a comforting food that’s good for a hangover, which would probably explain why this guy was sitting in front of this stall.

Not bad, but not that good, either. Super bland, if I’m being honest.

All in all, a great day. Lucy didn’t take us to Shanghai. She took us into it. Down subway staircases and through wet alleys and into stalls that only the locals were going to, which is always where the best food lives. We ate standing up, in the rain, at plastic tables, from vendors who specialize in exactly one thing and have been doing it longer than we’ve been alive.

I’ll leave the garlic toenails for the locals.

Gānbēi 干杯