Shanghai Dining, Shanghai Cuisine & Foods

Shanghai cuisine, also known as Hu Cai, includes two styles--Benbang cuisine and Haipai cuisine. Benbang cuisine, literally meaning "local cuisine", is the traditional family style cuisine. Haipai cuisine, literally meaning "all-embracing cuisine" is derived from the cosmopolitan culture.

Benbang cuisine and Haipai cuisine have many things in common: First, they make great use of fresh meat, chicken, vegetables and especially various marine ingredients such as fish, shrimps and crabs. Secondly, Shanghai cuisine has a great number of signature dishes made from various seasonal ingredients. Thirdly, a wide range of cooking techniques have been adopted and include steaming, braising, stewing, stir-frying, quick-frying, deep-frying, boiling, marinating, smoking and roasting. Fourthly, strongly hot food hardly ever forms part of Shanghai cuisine. Most of the dishes taste fresh, clear, mellow, sweet. In recent years, Shanghai cuisine has been greatly influenced by Cantonese cuisine.

Shanghai Featured Cuisine and Snack

Xiao Long Bao (Soup Dumplings)

They are basically pork dumplings with hot broth inside them. The best of these soup dumplings are certainly Xie Fen Xiao Long Bao which are filled with crab meat / roe and minced pork, and the broth tastes even better with the tint of the crab meat / roe. Shanghai locals usually go to Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant only for the featured crab meat soup dumplings.

Da Zha Xie (Shanghai Hairy Crab)

Facing the East China Sea, Shanghai is famous for its seafood. In addition, due to its location among the rivers, lakes, and canals of the Yangtze Delta, locals favor freshwater produce just as much as saltwater products like crabs, oysters, and seaweed. The most famous local delicacy is Shanghai hairy crab. The roe and the inward, featuring a splendid sweet flavor, are what people go for. It is better to try crabs when they are hot.

Escargot

The top snack sold at Wuweizhai Snack Store and many other restaurants at City God Temple Snack Square. It often comes with fragrant grain wine and tastes quite fresh.

Shanghai Famous Restaurants

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, Laokeliao Shanghai Cuisine

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant is the most famous snack store at the City God Temple Snack Square. You can often find a long queue in front of the gate all of whom are right for the restaurant's featured steamed bun. Shanghai people would like to rank it as the No. 1 snack around their hometown.

Laokeliao Shanghai Cuisine is known for its professional series of Shanghai dishes. If you want to feast the most authentic Shanghai dinner, come strolling at the prosperous Fujian Rd. (M) and you'll soon find Laokeliao.


Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant	Laokeliao Shanghai Cuisine

Western Restaurants with the View of the Bund

With The Bund No.3 Restaurant as the initiator, such Western resturants are getting more and more along the Bund. All of them show off good taste, high rank, splendid scenery and astonishingly high price. Standout are The Bund No.3 Restaurant, The Bund No.18 Restaurant and M on the Bund Restaurant.


The Bund No. 3 Restaurant	M on The Bund Restaurant