Shanghai Xiao Chi @ Wujiang Lu

I am not quite done yet with the food in Shanghai and Japan but navigating through the maze in my flickr album is a daunting task. I keep telling myself I need to categorize my photos properly...

Xiao chi (small eats) can be found at every nook and corner in Shanghai but it would take a strong leathery gut, literary and figuratively, to sample all.

The place I like best had to be the Wujiang xiao chi road, a pedestrian food heaven with all the small eats of Shanghai congregate in this one small alley. This famous alley will be a thing of the past soon as there is a plan to revamp it to a more upmarket street like its western stretch which now, after renovation, houses all the branded stores like Starbuck, Coffee Bean and many shopping arcades like Marks & Spencer (but all these can be found in any city in the world!!).

The scene of this pedestrian walk taken on a Sunday about lunch time when we arrived. We were not able to get much to eat as almost every stall had queue line a mile long (not exaggerating but Heather said the line moves very fast as the food get dished out speedily with very little finesse). Undaunted, we went back again on our last day in Shanghai. Below are two days' worth of Wujiang Lu...

Look at the queue even at the smelly tofu stall. 

But we managed...

Another queue for the chinese burgers, small buns which were stuffed with meat of one's choice.

All kinds of fruit candies that claimed to have some healing benefits.

Very popular kebabs with with meats ranging from tame to wild.

These tepanyaki cuttlefish looked delish but line too long.

Potstickers, a very hot item too.

Find the skin a little thicker than our dumplings but still good.

I love this bowl of spicy noodle soup. Not the bowl though...

The noodles were just like the Korean glass noodles.

It was topped with thin slices of meat (beef) and a whole array of condiments like peanuts, sesame seeds, fried shallots, garlic, preserved veggies, cilantro, chili paste and see the basin of red hot sauce at the right hand corner? That's the finishing touch. Sooo good especially in this cold, cold Shanghai weather. I am drooling writing this...

 

This was from the same stall. Eaten cold but packed with fury heat too. The noodle is much like our hor fun but thicker and with more bite.

Yang's fried dumplings, the most famous sheng jian bao and it is NOT over-rated. We only get to eat these on our second trip. They were worth the long wait. The skin was smooth, not quite as thick as bao's skin but thicker than dumpling's, with a bite and held the most delicious soup within which was real stock and not lard like the few we had by some roadside stalls. 

Leanne has decided she loves these more than xiao long bao, me too.