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What to eat in Shanghai

Shanghai is not just only a shopping heaven but also a place where you can enjoy delicious food from both home and abroad. Now, let me be your guide to enter into the food world of Shanghai and get the answer to What to eat in Shanghai.

Shanghai cuisine

Speaking of the cuisine of China, although Shanghai cuisine is not listed into the famous eight cuisines in China, since you are in Shanghai,it should be your first choice. Because of the natural good geographical position and climate condition, Shanghai is a place with abundant food materials such as a large quantity of vegetable from farmlands in Shanghai suburb, seafood from East China Sea and oyster or fish from rivers. Meanwhile, thanks to Shanghai’s importance of transport and advanced transportation system, the ingredients and materials from other places of China also diversify the cuisine of Shanghai.

Shanghai cuisine was originated from Shanghai local people’s daily dish. Therefore, it is relatively plain and inexpensive, and mainly characterized by braising in soy sauce(Red cooking 红烧)and stir-frying. Hence, the basic characteristics of Shanghai Cuisine are: sweetness and colorfulness. In Shanghai cuisine, yellow wine are used to "drunk醉" chicken,fish and crabs. Compared with people from north part of China, Shanghai people like to eat in delicate portions. So if you go to the local restaurant, the dishes will be often served on the table with small amount.

The following are some famous Shanghai Cuisine:


pig's feet in red cooking	steamed Shanghai hairy crab	soup with mushroom and rice crust

Chinese mitten Crab(Da Zha Xie)	Crispy chicken	trachidermus fasciatus heckel

Nowadays, with the optimization influence of other cuisine in China and western-style food, the menu of Shanghai Cuisine has enlarged. Just as the multi-culture of Shanghai, Shanghai cuisine is being changed and internationalized.

Besides, Shanghai snack like Shanghai Nanxiang Steamed Stuffed Bun, Sheng Jian(生煎 fried stuffed bun") and Guo Tie (fried jiaozi).

Famous Cuisine in China

If you are not a fan to Shanghai cuisine but really interested in SiChuan spicy cuisine, Cantonese cuisine, Xinjiang cuisine or cuisine of some Chinese minority, then you can make your dream come true in Shanghai. Because as the biggest industrialized city in China, many Chinese people from other places gather here for making a living and bring their hometown’s cuisine here at the same time. Even the local Shanghai cuisines also changed the characteristics. On the contrary, when other famous cuisine goes in Shanghai, cooks also reform the recipes to cater to the taste of Shanghai people.

Foreign Cuisine in Shanghai

As the growth and extension of Sino-foreign cultural exchange, many western-style cuisine land on Shanghai, too. Even if you are still not used to eating Chinese food, you have another option to have foreign cuisine or maybe your country’s cuisine in Shanghai, such as French cuisine, Italian cuisine, Thailand cuisine, Indian cuisine, Brazilian cuisine, Argentine cuisine, Japanese cuisine, Korean cuisine, Singapore cuisine, Mexican cuisine and so on.

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