Shanghai, for all its faults, has an amazing food scene. For Asia, it's almost second to none when it comes to the sheer breadth of good, authentic restaurants from around the world. This is helped by close to 400,000 expats that live here, many which are involved in the F&B industry. Tokyo has it all, but a lot of it is catered to Japanese tastes. HK is probably the only true contender these days when your talking about variety of food from around the world that isn't changed for the masses.
Will Shanghai keep evolving as China's ultimate food city? Who knows? But I'm seriously enjoying the fruits at the moment.
After writing all that, we aren't even going to focus on foreign cuisine. We are eating baozi; steamed pork bun and some seriously amazing noodles.
Baohouse. Located on Jin Xian Road.
baohouse_ by
Andrew Rochfort, on Flickr
Their signature dish; the baozi. It's good, but not close to the best thing they offer.
baohouse 1 by
Andrew Rochfort, on Flickr
Baozi has to be eaten piping hot. You can't take this home in a doggy bag. These particular baozi have A LOT of "soup" inside. While I welcome a little bit of that meaty, soupy goodness in a xiaolongbao, I'm not super stoked to have one fluid ounce spill all over my hands. Baozi shouldn't be an oily, messy affair. It's because of this that I'm kind of disappointed in these buns. For a signature food, you should sort out your soup to bun ratio.
baohouse 2 by
Andrew Rochfort, on Flickr
Their wonton soup is on point. Great broth, and amazing wontons - they pretty much melt in your mouth. A lovely, humble dish.
baohouse 3 by
Andrew Rochfort, on Flickr
And this was the show stopper; shrimp roe noodles. Wow. Whenever I get to experience a new taste, I'm a pretty happy guy, and these do not disappoint. The noodles are obviously made fresh daily, and the roe is fantastic. Despite the amount of roe on the noodles, it doesn't overpower with that shrimpy taste. It's subtle, and totally compliments the flavour of the noodles. One of my new favourite bowls of noodles in the city.
baohouse 4 by
Andrew Rochfort, on Flickr