Street Dim Sums in Shanghai-Xiaolongbao

Xiaolongbao is the most famous Shanghai food. Some people even come to Shanghai just to taste Xiaolongbao which is a kind of small streamed bun.

There is a pithy formula to eat Xiaolong properly: “Pick up it gently, move it slowly, bite a small hole on it and then taste the meat fluid in it.” That describes the feature of Xiaolongbao exactly. The skin of Xiaolong is extremely thin. The thinner is the better. Thick skin makes Xiaolongbao taste bad. Often, the skin of Xiaolongbao is translucent and you can see the meat and meat fluid inside through the skin. Another factor that effects the taste of Xiaolongbao is the meat fluid. Good Xiaolongbao should be full of the meat fluid. A dry Xiaolongbao is a bad one. The stuffing in a Xiaolongbao is made of pork in most times. However, in some upper-scale snack bar, people use the crab meat to make Xiaolongbao, which costs a lot.

Xiaolongbao can be seen everywhere in Shanghai, but two places are specially famous of Xiaolongbao. One is the Yu Garden. There are hundreds of Shanghai Dim Sums sold in the Yu Garden and the Xiaolongbao is one of the most popular foods. If you want to buy a box of Xiaolongbao in the Yu Garden on weekends, it may take you an hour in the queue. Both normal Xiaolongbao and crab-meat-made Xiaolongbao are sold in the Yu Garden. They are both expensive but not taste so good. If you haven’t taste Xiaolongbao before, you may think those in the Yu Garden taste wonderful, but once you try the Xiaolongbao in Nanxiang Guqi Yuan, you will think they are junk, compared to those in the Nanxiang Guqi Yuan. I strongly command every tourist in Shanghai to have the Xiaolongbao in Nanxiang Guqi Yuan because it’s so amazingly delicious!