Shanghai Snacks

It was still early in the morning and I decided to have a bit of breakfast. I have been around this area of Shanghai the previous day and I know there are a lot of restaurants around. However, since this was very near Nanjing Road, that will also mean that cheap food isn’t really that easy to find. A large ultra-modern city like Shanghai has a high cost of living, the highest in China. Rent has been skyrocketing in this city together with its economy. This has naturally driven up food prices making Shanghai a not so cheap place to be.

I happened to walk down a street with rows of restaurants. I was hoping I would be able to find a place which is affordable and yet still delicious. I did find out but it was filled with the breakfast crowd, so I ended up next door which wasn’t that full. This place was serving Shanghai snacks. One thing I was looking forward to was authentic pork buns or xiao long bao 小笼包. I had some in Beijing but they turned to be vastly different from what I know. It was the Hangzhou version which I tried. This time I will be having the Shanghai style xiao long bao. And indeed it was what I had hoped for. The skin of the buns where soft and thin and yet strong enough to hold the delicious soup it contains within.

Although I finally found my xiao long bao, it wasn’t as nice as I hoped it to be. For one thing, the soup wasn’t as much as I expected it to be. I guess this was one of those mass produced ones. It was tasty just not juicy enough. The skin was a bit thicker than I wanted it to be too. I guess even in Shanghai it is not easy to get them right. I also had a serving of another Shanghai specialty, fried buns 生煎. These turned out to be a non event as they tasted rather ordinary. The only saving grace was that they were freshly fried. Shanghai has a long list of snacks but I don’t really have the time to try them. This was just a sample, hopefully you can and find a better place.

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