header
back to front

Snacks and Street Food- part 1

Pan-Chinese offerings from China’s most cosmopolitan city

One of the pleasures of living in Shanghai is the great number of street foods and snacks on offer. Granted they may not be the healthiest things on the planet but then again neither are fried chicken nuggets or the breakfast burrito. It is indeed a shame that many expatriates spend their time in Shanghai without ever venturing to try even the tamest of these treats. So, here is a scratch on the surface of what the city has to offer in the way of casual nosh.

Although some of these foods are available only during certain periods of the day, one of the best indicators of freshness and quality is of course a line up. If the locals are willing to sit in line for 5 minutes, you might as well give it a shot. I’m not even going to enter into the debate about cleanliness. Suffice to say that I’ve seen enough filthy high-end restaurant kitchens.

First, baozi. A small white steamed bun the size of a fist, baozi are often, in their savoury form, stuffed with seasoned pork and gravy, or vegetables and tofu. Cheaper ones tend to emphasize the fat over the meat so it’s often best to spend the whole 0.7-1 RMB (10-13 cents a unit). Vegetable baozi are to my mind less delicious but a healthier option. Sweet baozi can be filled with sweet black sesame paste (delicious!) or sweetened red bean paste. Both are popular for breakfast and deservedly so. Breakfast foods are often consumed with warm or cold soymilk or extremely soft tofu. These come in a sealed plastic cup, are drunk through a straw, and can be either salty or sweet.

Two more popular breakfast are dan bing and ci fan tuan. The former is a somewhat crisp pancake about the size of a small hub cap, freshly cooked in front of you, spread with egg, a scattering of pickled vegetables, coriander, bean paste and some chillies if you so desire. The whole thing is folded around either a crispy dough wafer or a fried donut called you tiao (“oil stick”, poetic, I know). For 3 kuai a pop this is a perfectly filling breakfast or mid morning snack as the vendors are most often sold out and gone by 11:00 at the latest. Ci fan tuan can, in its street side version, best be described as Chinese sushi. Again, mostly a morning treat, sticky rice is wrapped around either sweet (shredded pork floss and powdered sweetened black sesame) or savoury/spicy (pickled vegetables, shredded pork floss, possibility of salted egg yolk) fillings and a bit of crisp fried you tiao, for textural contrast. Although I enjoy ci fan tuan I have to share them as they’re just too much sticky rice for me. Again, about 2-3 kuai.

Although not strictly a street food, sheng jian bao and guo tieh are as well often available for breakfast and in restos or stalls throughout the day. The former are approximately the size of a golf ball, have a skin a bit thinner than a baozi and are fried on the bottom. Stuffed with pork and often containing some broth they’re as dangerous as baozi when it comes to the squirt factor. They can easily be spotted as they are fried up in round coffee table sized black metal pans. Their cousin, guo tieh, or what are called “pot stickers”, are often found nestling either next to them or in a neighbouring pan. If you’ve had Japanese gyoza, you’ve had these. Slightly less doughy and filling than sheng jian bao, they’re no less delicious and again, a small paper bag full will run you about 3 RMB.
street side snacks

Street vendor- Photo by Michael Elliott

Now, two specialities of China’s western Muslim minority. The first, kebabs, usually appears some time in the afternoon and last late into the night. Chunks of lamb meat and fat are threaded onto wooden skewers and grilled over glowing embers, then seasoned with powdered cumin and powdered chillies. At around 1 RMB a stick this is true street meat but those with a fat-phobia beware as every skewer contains at least one piece of crispy hot lamb fat. A question of keeping the bits of meat nice and juicy. The second western Chinese speciality on offer is of course la mian or hand pulled noodles. Part of the magic of this is the show as the be-capped chef effortlessly stretches and stretches again your meal from a chunk of white dough, tossing the resulting noodles often through the window into the boiling pot of water outside. The variations on these noodles are numerous with flat pulled noodles, and hand cut noodles being two options. Served in soup or fried with tomato and pepper sauce this cuisine uses lamb or more commonly beef as a protein source. Pork is of course forbidden and be careful, although you can bring outside drinks into the more simple establishments, alcohol is often unwelcome. For 6 RMB per bowl, a great dinner.


by Michael Elliott



Next time: Chinese chicken shawarma, jian bing, and flaky leek and meat pastries.