Shanghai Cuisine or Benbang Cuisine develops from household dishes possessing plain and simple characteristics; it is adept at braising and sautéing and is strong in taste, greasy and rich in sauce with a prominent household style. In practice, it combines the dishes of Hangzhou, Ningbo, Yangzhou Suzhou, Wuxi and Huizhou and absorbs the features of various other cuisines. Shanghai dishes are juicy, thick, greasy, rich in sauce, moderately salty and slightly sweet. The selected raw materials are fresh and lively. The flavouring is salty, sweet, fermented and sour.
There are a number of famous Shanghai dishes, like Braised Hui Fish (Hongshao Huiyu, 红燒蛔魚). Shanghai chefs focus on maintaining the original flavour and pay close attention to cooking duration. The dishes are bright red, juicy and thick with tender meat and are very popular with the local people. The cooking techniques commonly used are sautéing, quick-frying, stewing and steaming and a large amount of soy sauce and fermented rice wine are always used as flavouring. Fermented rice wine contains water, yellow wine and some seasoning. The raw materials used are normally fresh and the flavouring is salty, sweet, sour, or acidic. One feature of Shanghai cuisine is that the cooks use salt to enhance the sweetness of flavour.
Main Dishes
Deep-fried Shredded Pickles and Green Beans (Xuecai Douban Su, 雪菜豆瓣酥)
Green beans, pickles, refined cooking oil, monosodium glutamate, salt and sugar are the main raw materials to make this dish. Green beans are boiled until cooked, taken out and dried. They are then shredded and stir-fried with green beans and seasoning until fully cooked. This dish is green, salty, fresh, slightly sweet, crispy and soft.
Chopped Marinated Chicken, New Hongqiao Style (Xin Hongqiao Zui Caoji, 新虹桥醉草鸡)
Spring chicken, salt, monosodium glutamate, sugar, yellow and white wine, shallots and ginger are the main raw materials to cook this dish. The chicken is butchered and boiled, singed and gutted, rinsed in water and then boiled until completely cooked. The cooked chicken is cooled down in cold water and marinated for 12 hours in sauce made of up white wine, yellow wine, salt, monosodium glutamate and sugar. Finally, the chicken is chopped into pieces and placed in a pickling jar and soaked in marinated sauce and sealed. After a certain period of time, it can be brought to the guests. The dish is golden in skin and aromatic with the fragrance of the wine.
Shanghai Freshwater Crabs with Wine Sauce (Shanghai Zui Xie, 上海醉蟹)
To make this dish, freshwater crabs, good quality Shaoxing wine, fermented rice wine, salt, white sugar, sliced shallots, ginger, pepper and orange peels are used. To make the sauce, boiled water with salt, sugar and pepper is cooled down and mixed with Shaoxing wine and fermented rice wine. Cleaned freshwater crabs are dried and laid into a clean container with sliced shallots, ginger and orange peels on the bottom. Over the crabs, onion, ginger, orange peels and a heavy object are placed on top to compact the dish. After the wine sauce is added, the container is sealed and kept for four days in a freezer. While being served, the crabs are chopped into pieces and mixed with a tiny bit of wine sauce. The dish is aromatic and extremely delicious.
Minced Fried Goose Liver Cakes Coated with Butter (Egan Jiangpian, 鹅肝酱片)
Goose liver, cooking oil, butter, shallots, garlic, light soy sauce, pepper powder, sugar and yellow wine are the main raw materials applied. The cleaned goose liver is boiled and stir-fried with shallots and ginger and other flavourings until completely cooked. After being cooled down, the fried goose liver is mashed with a blender, coated with butter and placed into a mould then kept in a fridge for three to four hours until solidified. Finally, the frozen goose liver is sliced and served. This dish is soft and delicious, rich in nutrition with a combined western and Chinese flavour.
Boiled Shaoxing Chicken in Wine (Xiaoshaoxing Zuiji, 小绍兴醉鸡)
One local Shaoxing chicken, Shaoxing yellow rice wine, fine salt, monosodium glutamate, pepper powder and chicken soup are the major raw materials for this dish. The chicken is butchered and rinsed, boiled until cooked, naturally cooled in chicken soup and chopped into four parts. Pepper and fine salt are fried together and mixed with Shaoxing yellow rice wine, monosodium glutamate and chicken soup whilst it cools. The mixture is then poured into a container with the chopped chicken and sealed for twenty four hours. Finally, the chicken is sliced and served. The dish is slightly yellow, tender and aromatic with a fragrance of rice wine.
Boiled Chopped Shaoxing Chicken (Xiaoshaoxing Baizhan Ji, 小绍兴白斩鸡)
One Shaoxing chicken is butchered, singed, gutted and cleaned. The chicken is boiled over a moderate fire, soaked in a specially prepared sauce, then chopped into pieces and placed onto a tray. Guests may enjoy the dish along with some special favouring. This dish is slightly yellow, tender, delicious and delightful to look at.
Boiled Lotus Root Stuffed with Glutinous Rice and Crystal Sugar (Nuomi Tang Ou, 糯米糖藕)
Lotus root, glutinous rice, white sugar, crystal sugar and sweet osmanthus flowers are used as the raw materials for this dish. The lotus root is cleaned and peeled and the two ends are cut off to act as lids. Glutinous rice is washed and dried and stuffed into the two openings of the lotus root. After the openings are completely filled, the lids are re-connected using toothpicks. The lotus root is then boiled over an intense flame and simmered for three hours. Then, white sugar is added into the pan and the mixture is boiled until bright in colour. The cooked lotus root is then cooled, sliced and placed onto a tray. Meanwhile, some crystal sugar is boiled in a small amount of water until it melts. Then the melted sugar sauce along with sweet osmanthus flowers are poured onto the lotus root. The dish is bright red, soft but not sticky and is best served during the autumn.
Braised Crispy Freshwater Carp (Xiangsu He Jiyu, 香酥河鲫鱼)
Wild freshwater carps, shallots, Zhenjiang rice vinegar, white sugar, soy sauce, cooking oil and yellow wine are the main raw materials to cook this dish. First, the shallots are chopped into three pieces and the carps are deep-fried one by one in boiling oil. The sliced shallots are placed on the bottom of the cooking pan with some of the used cooking oil and the deep-fried fish is placed on top. Second, water, rice vinegar, white sugar, soy sauce and yellow wine are added. Third, the mixture in the pan is braised over a moderate fire until the carps are completely cooked. Last of all, when they have completely cooled down, the cooked carps are placed onto a tray and brought to the guests. The dish is bright red, soft and crispy, fragrant and flavoursome.
Food Street
Shanghai food is quite unique and streets dedicated to it can only be found in the city itself. This makes the Shanghai food streets very popular with tourists.
Huanghe Road
Huanghe Road was developed as a food street in 1993, following the rises of tourism. Most of the businesses along this street are private and they mainly serve food from places such as Sichuan, Guizhou and Hunan provinces. Laitianhua Restaurant, with its six-floors, can be packed when business is booming. Many of the restaurants are divided onto two floors to accommodate the customers, because of the narrowness of Huanghe Road. It appears as though the upper storey is floating in the air, which is quite characteristic of Shanghai food streets. It is not as popular as it once was, but it still attracts tourists because it is so well-known.
Yunnan South Road
Sitting on the junction between Yan’an Road and Xizang Road, Yunnan South Road is a popular food street and was given the name Great World Food Street in 1991. Its location means it attracts many tourists when they first arrive in the city and the majority of the food here is from Shanghai and Sichuan.There is a wide choice of places to eat along Yunnan South Road, with at least 100 restaurants and small eateries. For dishes from Jiangnan, try the Xiangmanlou (Flowing with Aromas) Restaurant – its very name makes the mouth water! Clay oven rolls, soy milk, glutinous rice sesame balls, noodle soup… All can be found here.
On Ostium Lane, several food stalls open at midnight. These are good quality and as such as popular with locals.
Hongzhi Square
For barbequed food, pizza, coffee and noodles, Hongzhi Square is the place to visit. It has every sort of food from all over the world, including curry, macaroni, mutton and sashimi: food from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Japan, Xinjiang and Italy, among others. There is generally more space here than in typical Chinese restaurants, and often feel more like bars. Prices reflect this, as they are higher than those in typical Chinese eateries.
Snacks
Drinks
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