Shanghai Street Food
Some of you might remember the pride of Shanghai street food that once was…Wujiang Lu. Though the street still exists, most of the stalls and small restaurants that gave it its reputation as the most exciting foodie destination in China have been relocated to indoor malls and replaced by the likes of Costa Coffee and Carl's Jr. But despite the occasional government crackdown, street food is still alive and well (for now), and there is no better time to experience that particular energy of Shanghai than between 6 and 9am. Forget your Egg McMuffins and KFC breakfast bowls. Let's take a look at REAL fast food...for breakfast!1. Steamed Breakfast
(Xingfu Lu, next to Huashan Park)
Although these are available most of the day, street vendors seem to pump more out in the mornings. Getting them earlier in the day guarantees they are fresh and hot. The most common, baozi （包子）, is a meatball surrounded by soup and encased in a white flour bun. When they are fresh, you can poke a hole with your teeth and suck out the soup before indulging in the soft bread and juicy meatball. Other variations of the baozi are the cai bao 菜包 (green vegetables and tofu steamed inside the bun), doushao bao 豆少包 (sweet red bean), naihuang bao 奶黄包(milk/egg custard), fensi bao 粉丝包 (clear rice noodles), zhima bao 芝麻包 (black sesame paste), and larou bao 辣肉包 (same as original, but spicy). For another take on the baozi, check this out. Baozi costs somewhere between ¥0.8 and ¥1.2.
Baozi is usually sold alongside shaomai 烧卖, glutinous rice (and maybe a little meat) wrapped into a cone of rice flour.
2. Jian Bing Guo Zi aka Chinese Breakfast Burrito
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Jidanbing guozi（鸡蛋饼馃子）goes by several names: jian bing, jidan bing, dan bing, the Tianjing Crepe, and the Egg-y Pancake. But the name that sticks with me is the "Chinese Breakfast Burrito". The CBB comes to us from Tianjing and has since been an enduring part of many Shanghainese diets. It is essentially a thin crepe/pancake topped with egg, green onions, cilantro/coriander, pickled vegetables and lajiao (chili sauce or paste). It is then wrapped around a crispy, deep-fried dough cracker alongside a unique sauce (some vendors prefer a sauce on the salty side while others go sweet, so you might need to shop around to find the one that suits you). The mixture of textures, combination of flavors, and portablility makes this one of the most unique items found in Shanghai. Cost is usually ¥2.5 to ¥3.5. A popular variation is to replace the crispy cracker with a youtiao (which I explain in #3).
3) Deep-Fried Breakfast
(Wulumuqi Road, near Huaihai Road)
First, we have youtiao （油条） which is essentially a cruller. It is airy like a donut and usually eaten by dipping in doujiang (soybean milk). Next is cifan (糍饭）which is simply a deep-friend block of white rice. Both of these items are about ¥0.5.
At the morning deep-fryer, you can also find maqiu （麻球） which is usually sweet black sesame seeds or sweet red bean wrapped in dough, deep-fried, and rolled in white sesame seeds. The dough is made with glutinous rice flour, so it is crispy on the outside but still chewy on the inside. Expect to pay ¥1.
4) Cong You Bing aka Good Morning Heart Attack
(Wulumuqi Road, near Huaihai Road)
Congyou bing （葱油饼）is a flaky, doughy bread (resembling Indian roti parantha) topped with egg, green onions, white pepper, and maybe some lajiao. As the name inplies, its onion-y, oily, delicious, and heavy. If you want to be awesome, bring a peice of cheese with you and hold the onions. Now you have an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. ¥2.5 to ¥3.
5) Ci Fan Tuan aka Ball O'Carbs
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If you love empty carbohydrates, you might like cifan tuan （糍饭团）. The vendor will grab a handful of steamed rice, top it with white sugar, pork meat floss, maybe some pickled vegetables and two full youtiao (deep-fried crullers). He then shapes the whole thing into a ball, puts it in a clear plastic bag and charges you ¥3. If you finish eating it, you will be half a kilogram heavier and full for five hours.
6) Fried Dumplings
(Panyu Lu, near Pingwu Lu)Like steamed breakfast, this is available all day but they are best in the mornings when served directly from a 50-year-old cast iron skillet to your styrofoam box.
Guotie 锅贴 (far left) are basically jiaozi-style meat dumplings that are fried on a skillet. In the west, these are often referred to as "pot-stickers." Shengjian 生煎 (middle) are like small baozi but fried to a crisp on one side leaving the other side soft. These delectable two-faced treats are of the most popular snacks in China, and the best in the world are sold on the streets of Shanghai. For both the guotie and the shengjian, the insides include a meatball and an oily soup. On the street, guotie are usually two for ¥1 while shengjian are four for ¥3 to ¥5.
Cooking alongside the dumplings are jian bao 煎包 (top right). These flaky, fried buns can be stuffed with meat, veggies or shredded radish and will set you back ¥1.
7) Jian Bing aka Dongbei Flapjacks
(Wulumuqi Road, near Huaihai Road)
This one and #2 share a lot of the same names: Jian bing, dan bing, etc. and both hail from Northeastern China. But simple jian bing (煎饼）is just the pancake and egg portion (and often green onions). The best jian bing is layers upon layers of egg and dough panfried and cut into large pizza-shaped portions. These too have a lot of variations and cost about ¥2 for a slice.
8) Da Bing
(Wulumuqi Road, near Huaihai Road)Da bing 大饼 (or shao bing 烧饼) may seem like simple baked bread but how it is baked is very unique. Raw, sticky dough is stuck to the inside of a metal barrel of burning coal and/or wood. When the bread is golden-brown, it is pried off and sold. Generally, the rectangular bing are a bit salty while the round ones are sweet or plain. Both are dashed with sesame seeds and/or green onions before going in the oven. these are ¥0.5 to ¥1.
9) Dou Jiang / Soybean Milk
Soy is a staple of the East. So wash down your oily breakfast with some soybean milk （doujiang 豆浆). It's sold relatively fresh just about everywhere breakfast is sold. You can also get the pre-packaged stuff at any convenience store. It has the same amount of protein as cow's milk and more vitaman E.10) Other breakfasts
In 1-9, we highlighted quick breakfast items that can be found streetside. But if you take a few more minutes to hop into a restaurant in the mornings, you will find other popular breakfast dishes:
-Zhou (粥）also known as Congee - a rice porridge flavored with fresh and pickled veggies, meats, eggs, soy sauce..anything really.
-Soupy Noodles - from Lanzhou Lamian （兰州拉面）to Wonton Soup, （混沌汤）the chinese love soup and noodles in the morning.
-Ningbo Tang Yuan (宁波汤圆）These are small glutinous rice flour balls with sweet sesame paste inside served in a sweet broth.
-Dou Fu Hua （豆腐花） a salty soy soup-gelatin amalgamation
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