Five more dishes worth setting an alarm for
These sit alongside the Four Warriors in Shanghai's morning rotation. Some stalls sell out by 8.30 am — you have been warned.
5
Where the Four Warriors are quiet and intimate, shengjian bao are a performance. A flat-bottomed wok large enough to park a bicycle in. Two hundred buns arranged tight, base-down in oil. A lid on, steam building. Ten minutes, then the lid lifts: the bases have turned a deep chestnut-amber, audibly crunchy when tapped, the tops still white and pillowy, dusted with sesame and spring onion. Bite in and the broth inside releases. At Yang's Dumplings four pieces cost ¥13 and are the best thirteen yuan you will spend in this city. Eat them standing outside the shop; the crust softens as soon as they cool.
6
Xiaolongbao are not traditional breakfast food for most Shanghainese — they belong more to the mid-morning tea-house tradition. But Jia Jia Tang Bao on Huanghe Road opens at 6.30 am and fills up fast, and eating a basket of their pork XLB at seven in the morning, with a cup of black tea, while the neighbourhood carts are still setting up around you, is one of Shanghai's better ways to begin a day. The correct technique: bite a tiny hole in the side, count to ten, sip the broth, eat the rest. The wrapper should have at least 18 pleats. Pork-only baskets are ¥32.
A crescent-shaped dumpling — pork and Napa cabbage filling, open at the top — fried base-down in a shallow film of oil until the underside is golden and crunchy, then steamed through the lid until the dough above it is tender. The Shanghainese version tends to be seasoned more gently than its northern Chinese cousins: the pork flavour comes through clearly, the filling stays juicy, the bottom snaps when you bite it. Dip in Zhenjiang black vinegar with fine-shredded ginger. Eight to ten pieces is a solid breakfast alongside a cup of soy milk.
8
Dough laminated multiple times with scallion oil and lard — in the manner of a rough puff pastry, but savoury and without the butter. Each layer visible when you tear it open; spring onion embedded through. Pressed onto a dry iron griddle until both sides are emphatically golden, the outer surface shatters, the inner layers remain soft and fragrant. The smell carries a long way — you often find the vendor before you see it. Vendors start at 5.30 am and reliably sell out by mid-morning. Eaten warm, pulled apart and dipped into a bowl of warm doujiang, it explains something essential about this city.
The Shanghai version of tofu pudding is not the sweet dessert familiar elsewhere. Hot soy milk is poured into a bowl with a small measure of black vinegar; the acid curdles the protein on contact into soft, silken white flakes — somewhere between a custard and a lightly set egg-drop. Fried shallots, dried shrimp, pickled mustard greens, and a thread of chilli oil go on top. The bowl arrives hot, steaming faintly, smelling of the sea and the kitchen at once. It is ¥6–12 and wholly, specifically Shanghainese. The liquid version (咸豆浆 xián dòujiāng) is looser and more pourable; the set version (豆腐花 dòufuhuā) holds its shape in the spoon.