So I first visited Shanghai when I was 14, then went for an exchange program there at 15 ( lollol, Had my puppylove experience then heheheh), and when I had a chance to go over to do a rotation in surgery at RuiJin Hospital, I GRABBED IT.
Nong hou!
So.. One of the must go places if you were to go an online google search for ' top things to do in Shanghai' will be to visit Cheng Huang Temple. It's heaps touristy, it's crowded everyday, my local friends tell me that no local Shanghai-nese will ever visit the place. In fact, my boss at RuiJin hospital told me she has never been to Cheng Huang Temple despite born and bred in Shanghai.. HMMMMM.
But I love touristy things so yup.
BING TANG HU LU! So as far as I remember, everytime there's a TV drama about ancient China, there would be a fat kid eating this. Nothing fancy, it's just a traditional chinese snack of candied hawthorn. Recently stores are starting to sell candied strawberries instead of hawthorn but yeah that's just weird.
I was there nearing the Chinese New Year period, hence the festivity.
So... obviously after wrestling thru the sea of people, you get hungry. What should you eat? My recommendation is definitely the one that is on the michelin bib gourmand list...........NANXIANG STEAMED DUMPLINGS/XLB. (See first pic)
This place has 3 levels. The first level has the longest queues. Because it's the cheapest. However, I really discourage you from buying the first level xiaolongbaos. I mean we've seen many videos of fake eggs, newspaper pork fillings... I don't know... I'm not insinuating anything.. but as my asian mom likes to say in cantonese - yat fun qin yat fun for ( you pay for what you get ).. And a local actually told me that those unsold steamed buns from the third level gets shipped down to the second level the next day, they remove the meat from the skin and re-wrap them and it gets sold, if they are unsold, there are shipped down to the first level and the same recurs. So....... hurhurhur, the bottom of the chain is always gonna be the most unfresh. It's like real life isn't it, the bottom of the food chain is always the shit-est.
Anyway, I always opt to go to the highest level. There's a minimum spend of 80yuan per person. Which is actually not expensive at all.. Oh by the way, the price of xiao long bao increases as you go up the level.. So it's extremely easy to hit the minumum spend.
My soup dumpling! It's this thick dumpling skin that contains crab roe and pork juice.
Expensive and a waste of money. Moreover, the soup is so hot, I burnt my tongue.
Always always always opt for the crab roe + pork dumpling.
It's the best.
Nanxiang Xiaolongbao 南翔小笼包 城隍庙
cheng huang temple
huangpu district, shanghai
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