While in Shanghai, Mr. Selfish and I enjoyed the Shanghainese cuisine, which is also known as Hu cuisine. In particular, we loved all of the soup dumplings in Shanghai, which I’ll go over in another post.

Aside from the soup dumplings, my favorite meal was at Fu 1039 restaurant (1039号 Yuyuan Road), which specializes in Shanghainese food. The restaurant is located in a refurbished old villa and is a part of a fancy chain of restaurants starting with the name “Fu.” We tasted two quintessential dishes there – stewed pork in sweet soy sauce and hairy crab with greens.

Shanghainese food is known for its use of sugar and soy sauce. The pork belly melted in our mouths and had just a hint of sweetness. The hairy crab was amazing. I had never heard of hairy crab before, but it is also a specialty of Shanghai. Hairy crabs are only native to the coastal estuaries of eastern Asia. 

We also ordered some more greens and oven-baked fluffy turnip pastry. The fruit dessert was complimentary. It was a fancy and somewhat expensive meal but it was delicious.

Fu 1039 was the fanciest restaurant at which we dined. Otherwise, we just ate Shanghainese street food. Mr. Selfish particularly loved the scallion pancakes that were sold everywhere.

Mr. Selfish and I also had the cheapest and most delicious pork noodle soup while in Shanghai at Jingang Food and Drink Shop (601号 Changle Road). These noodles are made from scratch, and the pork is thick and tasty. Each hearty bowl was only 13 yuan!

Finally, we enjoyed some street fried rice. I don’t know what they put in the rice or whether it is just that the wok had cooked thousands of servings of fried rice and noodle, but it was quite yummy!

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll go over some of the parks we visited in Shanghai.