Shanghai Bites:

I haven’t done much with this blog for a while, largely because I haven’t been to Shanghai since I began it, my travel demands being eastward (from here in San Francisco) to New York or Montreal these days, as I have fish to fry there. Hopefully, I finally will be back in Shanghai in the fall to chase down some more good eats. In the meantime, I accomplished something in a passive way, namely got myself published in slick new Shanghai guidebook. “Urbanantomy: Shanghai 2008″ was published in Shanghai on February 24, and is now available in the US from Amazon. The book runs to 600 pages, but two of those pages are special to me because I wrote them: page 354, which contains a full page box labeled “Shanghai Snacks” and page 356, which contains another full page box titled “Gary Soup’s Top Dining Spots”. (Sandwiched in between is a Hooters girl, that is, an ad for Hooters featuring a modestly-Hootered Hooters Shanghai girl — ah the fantasies!)

Dianping.com, the giant of democratic restaurant review sites in China, has just released a definitive short list of the best places to go for some of Shanghai’s most famous small eats, as reported by Shanghaiist today. This is definitely a major development for those seeking out Shagnhai’s tastiest. Some, like Xiao Yang’s for shengjian bao (a slam dunk) and Jia Jai Tang Bao for xiaolong bao (which I’ve lobbied for often) are obvious choices, but you’ll get second and third choice picks for these, as well as the scoop on where to go for hong shao rou (Shanghai’s hallmark “red cooked pork”), you bao xia (stir-fried fresh-water shrimp in the shell) and xiefen doufo (hairy crab meat with tofu). Shanghaiist gives more details, as does the link provided to the original Chinese posting (where you can at least find some user-uploaded photographs, even if you don’t know Chinese). As a public service (for myself, if no one else), here is a summary list to clip and put between the pages of your Frommer’s:

Shengjian Bao:

• Xiaoyang Fry-Dumplings, 54-60 Wujiang Rd (the Wujiang Lu food street)
• Caijing Shengjian, 530 Sichuan Middle Rd.

Xiaolong Bao:

• Jiajia Tangbao, 90 Huanghe Rd
• Fuchun Xiaolong Shop, 650 Yuyuan Rd. (Jiangsu Rd metro stop)
• Delongguan, 473 Jiangxi Middle Rd.

Hongshao Rou:

• Jesse Restaurant, 41 Tianping Rd
• Yuanyuan Restaurant, 550 Wanping Rd
• Keven Chinese Cuisine, 1A Urumqi Rd.

Youbao Xia:

• Lanting, 107 Songshan Rd
• Lüya Restaurant, 372 Jiangxi Middle Rd
• Chun, 124 Jinxian Rd.

Xiefen Doufu:

• Lang Yifang Restaurant, 168 Lujiazui West Rd
• Ye Old Station Restaurant, 201 Caoxi North Rd
• Xiao Nanguo, 214-216 Huanghe Rd.

“Pane” (Colleen) on recommendations for me and the Erica mentioned in her post, just reported this on Chowhound.com:

With some input from Gary Soup and reports from Erica, I drew up a list of chow-ish places to visit on a trip to Beijing and Shanghai last week. I ended up hitting quite a few of the recommended stops, as well as others I happened by or heard reports of through other venues…. Jia Jia Tang Bao. The best xlb I’ve ever had. I ordered crab dumplings as well as pork and leek dumplings and favored the pork. No English spoken, but they have a scrap of paper with English translations you can point to.

The photo atop this post is by her. Twelve dumplings, as I remember, with the vinegar dish in the long, but it looks like they’ve taken to having the customer filling the dish himself.

If the Top [chow]Dog himself hadn’t recently kicked me off theboards, I’d raise a virtual glass of Reeb to Colleen in Jia Jia Tang Bao brotherhood and ask her if it’s still RMB 8 for the steamer.

For the last five years or so, I’ve been the registered owner of the xiaolongbao.com domain name. I never did much with it, just put up a placeholder web page with links to a couple of other of my websites, thinking I would figure out where I wanted to go with it. Mostly I just enjoyed the pride of ownership; I relished telling people I was such a nut for xiaolong bao that I owned the domain name. I even rebuffed an anonymous suitor whose offer for the name (via a broker) climbed to $2500 before he/she/it gave up; I’d be damned if I would give it up to someone whose intentions may not be completely honorable. But when a young man named Edward Chiu came along and pleaded for me to give him the name so he could memorialize his undeniable love for xiaolong bao, my hard-as-a-Jinhua-ham heart softened and he is now the proud owner of the domain name. The terms of compensation are in final negotiations, but will likely be 64 dumplings made by the “best dumpling maker in Shanghai”, Ed’s mother.

So check into Ed Chiu’s xiaolongbao.com website from time to time to see how he’s doing, and if he’s neglecting the little darlings, let him know that you are hungry for more. I will.

I was excited to hear that the latest installment of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” had him in Shanghai, sampling local small eats. When I caught the re-run, though, I found it to be a huge disappointment. Although the episode was identified as “Shanghai,” there was a scant 10 minutes or so of an hour-long blitzkrieg Long March to Shangrila, and it was stock travelogue stuff. AB at the Nanxiang Steamed Dumpling Shop, proclaiming their xiaolong bao product to be “the best dumplings in the world.” AB stopping by Xiao Yang’s for some shengjian bao (a.k.a. “fried dumplings”). And finally, the really exciting and titillating blip of Anthony Bourdain buying “stinky tofu” from a street vendor and representing that it was something new to him. Then poof, off to cormorant fishing (another travelogue yawner).

The Nanxiang is certainly photogenic in its setting and activity (as in the above photo), and deserves a visit simply because it’s a shrine to xiaolong bao. But it was galling to see Anthony Bourdain, as has been done with almost every video tour of Shanghai before, hunker down with the locals and agree with them on the party line that the Nanxiang’s XLB are the best anywhere. True, they once were, but if AB’s team did their research, he would know that the Nanxiang’s culinary glory has faded and there are probably mom-and-pop shops making tastier, nore delicate-skinned xiaolong bao in almost every Shanghai neighborhood today.

Shengjiang bao from Xiao Yang’s establishment and even chou doufu from street vendors are also covered in almost any guide book a visitor is likely to bring with him. But I forget, Anthony Bourdain’s show is on the Travel Channel, after all.