Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat xiaolongbao
Thin steamed dumplings with pork and hot broth inside, produced by aspic melting during cooking. Eaten carefully and with vinegar.
Vinegar with shredded ginger is a required partner rather than an option. The wrapper should be thin enough for the soup to show through.
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Try shengjian bao
Thick-skinned buns with pork and broth, fried crisp on the bottom and steamed under a lid. A breakfast eaten standing at the stall.
The crisp base is the mark of quality; a soft one has been sitting. There is broth inside these too, so bite the first one carefully.
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Try hongshao rou
Pork belly braised in soy, rice wine and caramelised sugar until it turns glossy dark red. The sweetness is fundamental rather than incidental.
The sauce should gloss and cling rather than run. It is eaten with plain rice, which balances the sweetness.
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Try hairy crab in autumn
A freshwater crab from Yangcheng Lake, steamed and eaten whole with vinegar and ginger tea. The season is October and November, with females and males ripening at different times.
Females with roe come earlier, males with milt later, and you specify which. The ginger tea is served to balance the crab's cooling nature rather than for flavour.
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Try scallion oil noodles
Noodles tossed in oil where spring onion has been cooked to near-black, with soy sauce and dried shrimp. Three ingredients and half an hour of patience.
The onion must be dark and brittle; that is the whole flavour. The dish is plain and cheap, yet expensive kitchens serve it too.
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Eat the Shanghai breakfast
The four heavenly kings: youtiao fried dough sticks, doujiang soy milk, cifantuan rice rolls wrapped around youtiao, and the layered dabing flatbread.
The soy milk comes in a savoury version with vinegar and shrimp, which is the Shanghai style and curdles into flakes. Stalls run until about nine.
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Try Shanghai smoked fish
Pieces of river fish fried and then steeped in a sweet-savoury marinade, served cold. A classic cold starter at the beginning of a meal.
Despite the name the fish is not smoked; the colour and flavour come from the marinade and frying. It is served cold with the other starters before the hot dishes.
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Try drunken shrimp and chicken
Shrimp or chicken steeped in Shaoxing rice wine with herbs and served cold. The chicken is poached; the shrimp in the classic version are alive.
Start with drunken chicken, which is cooked and safe. Live shrimp arrive in a covered vessel, and the dish is not for everyone.
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Try crab roe noodles
Noodles under a thick sauce of crab meat and roe, picked by hand from hairy crabs. An expensive seasonal dish, priced by the weight of the roe.
In autumn the sauce uses fresh crab; out of season it is made from frozen. Vinegar comes on the side and is added to taste.
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Eat Shanghai wontons
Large wontons with prawn and pork, or small ones in a clear broth with seaweed and shredded egg. Street food and home food at once.
The small xiao huntun are almost translucent and served in broth; the large da huntun work as a main. Vinegar and chilli oil sit on the table.
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Try qingtuan and tangyuan Desserts and pastries
Qingtuan are green rice balls coloured with mugwort and filled with bean paste, eaten in spring; tangyuan are rice balls in a sweet broth, eaten in winter.
Qingtuan appear around the Qingming festival in April and vanish quickly. Tangyuan belong to the Lantern Festival and are served hot in their broth.
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Try savoury Shanghai mooncake Desserts and pastries
A mooncake filled with pork in flaky pastry, eaten here hot and savoury unlike the sweet Cantonese kind. Sold from hatch windows with a queue.
The season is around the Mid-Autumn Festival, though the city sells them all year. Eat them hot; cold, the pastry loses its layers.
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Try custard buns Desserts and pastries
Steamed buns filled with a sweet-salty egg yolk custard that flows when bitten. A Cantonese classic, ubiquitous in Shanghai too.
The salted yolk in the custard is the point rather than a mistake; it gives the depth. Eat them hot, or the filling stops flowing.
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Drink green tea Non-alcoholic drinks
Longjing and biluochun from the neighbouring provinces, brewed straight in a glass with the leaves loose. Hot water is topped up three or four times.
The first infusion is the brightest and the third the softest; the change is intended. Free hot water is available in any restaurant and at stations.
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Drink plum tea and soy milk Non-alcoholic drinks
A dark sweet-sour smoked plum brew, drunk cold in summer, and fresh soy milk at breakfast, either sweet or savoury.
Savoury soy milk with vinegar curdles into flakes; that is the Shanghai version rather than a spoiled drink. The plum brew is served ice cold.
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Try Shaoxing rice wine Local alcohol
Yellow rice wine from nearby Shaoxing: not strong, with nutty and caramel notes, drunk slightly warmed.
It is warmed to body temperature rather than hot, which is what opens the aroma. The same wine goes into the braises, which is why local dishes taste the way they do.
