What to eat in Shanghai
Shanghai eats sweet and rich: soup dumplings, pan-fried shengjian for breakfast, hairy crab in autumn, red-braised pork, scallion oil noodles and rice wine.

[ ] Eat xiaolongbao
    Thin steamed dumplings with pork and hot broth inside, produced by aspic melting during cooking. Eaten carefully and with vinegar.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] Try qingtuan and tangyuan
    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.
[ ] Try savoury Shanghai mooncake
    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.
[ ] Try custard buns
    Steamed buns filled with a sweet-salty egg yolk custard that flows when bitten. A Cantonese classic, ubiquitous in Shanghai too.
[ ] Drink green tea
    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.
[ ] Drink plum tea and soy milk
    A dark sweet-sour smoked plum brew, drunk cold in summer, and fresh soy milk at breakfast, either sweet or savoury.
[ ] Try Shaoxing rice wine
    Yellow rice wine from nearby Shaoxing: not strong, with nutty and caramel notes, drunk slightly warmed.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-shanghai