Headed to Shanghai? These hip and hyper-local eating and drinking spots are a great place to start
A simple scene struck me during my early days in Shanghai: that of a sweet potato vendor wheeling his humble, honeyed wares past a luxury shopping mall. As with many of the world’s most alluring places, the ‘Paris of the East’ is a city of contrasts, one that is largely characterised by its long history of occupation by European powers. This polarity makes it all the more interesting for intrepid gourmets, who might want to sample regional Chinese cuisines while also falling back on familiar Western fare, or for those who aim to explore the fine dining scene, while also daring to dip into hole-in-the-wall destinations.
No one said it better than the late and great Anthony Bourdain in his award-winning travel and food TV show Parts Unknown (Season 4, 2014): “If you live in Manhattan like I do and you think you live in the center of the world, this place, Shanghai, will confront you with a very different reality. Turn down a side street, it’s an ancient culture. A centuries’ old mix of culinary traditions, smells, flavours. A block away, this: an ultra-modern, ever-clanging cash register.” While Bourdain’s words were uttered almost a whole decade ago, they still ring true in this city of 26 million.
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The ‘Four Breakfast Warriors’ (四大金刚)
Sure, Shanghai offers ample avocado toast and even decent bagels, but true champs start their day with the city’s ‘Four Breakfast Warriors,’ namely Chinese crullers or youtiao (油条), glutinous rice balls called cifantuan (粢饭团), sesame pancakes known as dabing (大饼), and soy milk, aka doujiang (豆浆).
Found in all four proverbial corners of the earth, Chinese crullers are sticks of dough deep-fried in smoking vats of oil. Less common, however, are cifantuan, a pimped version of the aforementioned crullers—glutinous rice is packed around a piece of youtiao, making for the ultimate carb bomb.
Lying on the lighter side of the spectrum, dabing come in sweet (round) and savoury varieties (rectangular), as does soy milk in Shanghai. Those who have only had sweet douhua will be taken aback by their first bowl in Shanghai, where it’s served with a splash of vinegar, tiny shrimp, chopped spring onions and pickled vegetables. Savoury soy pudding has a funky flavour and unparalleled umami quality that took a bit of getting used to, but quite frankly, I’m hooked.
Many street food stalls in Shanghai are so small that they only offer one or two breakfast staples for takeaway, hence my delight upon discovering Good Morning Hill (早安山丘). In addition to serving good renditions of all four warriors and more, the chain restaurant offers ample seating, so you can linger while rubbing elbows with the locals.
Good Morning Hill (早安山丘), multiple locations in Shanghai, China; zaoanshanqiu.com
