Roger escaped Hong Kong’s heat for a quick trip to Shanghai in October 2013, and the posts from those two days are almost entirely about food. Five of them are now in the archive.
The first big meal was Peking duck at Xindalu, inside the Hyatt on the Bund, which Roger called one of the best Peking duck spots around. The photos show why he was impressed: a chef carving at a trolley, lacquered skin from a traditional fire oven, pancakes in a steamer and a full set of sauces and scallions.
The same day brought two more stops. At Boxing Cat Brewery, a chalkboard listed a pilsner, an extra pale ale, a Simcoe single hop, a pumpkin ale and a TKO IPA — a surprisingly familiar lineup for a San Diego beer drinker. At Whisk, a dark chocolate pot and a crème brûlée earned the verdict one tasty dessert joint.
Then came the dumplings. Roger posted a lunch at Nanxiang Mantou Dian, the famous xiaolongbao shop, noting in Chinese that the line was long but the dumplings were very good. The next post opens with the words another delicious xiaolongbao joint: Jia Jia Tang Bao, where cooks in red caps pleated dumplings behind the counter. Again the queue was super long, and again it was well worth it.
A dinner at Jianguo 328 covered the Shanghainese classics — glossy red-braised pork, scallion-oil noodles and simply cooked greens — with four different ways of saying delicious in the caption.
A few days later, in Guangzhou, Roger tried Lanzhou food for the first time: hand-pulled noodles in clear broth, dumplings with chili oil and a plate of vegetables. The verdict, damn tasty, suggests it would not be the last time.
These are 2013 records, not a current Shanghai guide. What they do show is a traveler willing to stand in two long dumpling lines in two days — which is its own kind of recommendation.
