Last weekend, I was on the way to the Jingan Disabled Centre for my volunteering session (photos coming eventually, when I get round to it) and decided to grab lunch along the way. Since it was quite close to our apartment, I decided to walk there and pick up something along the way. Just 5 mins down the road, I saw a little street which was lined with food stalls on either side, and lots of people bustling around and eating. I spied a bright yellow sign that said Yan’s Fry Dumplings and thought Hmm that seems familiar”. There was a queue of eager customers so I decided to join right in 😉 That’s when I realised – it was YAN’S FRY DUMPLINGS, the famous one in Shanghai!!! They’ve been here for years and years and are lauded for having the best shen jian (fried dumplings) in Shanghai.

And that’s not it, I wasn’t just on any random food street – I was on Wujiang Lu! It’s THE famous food street, and now infamous because it’s being pulled down and redeveloped into a ritzier area.

Loved it so much, so decided to bring Chris there yesterday – since he’d just stepped off the plane from Seattle and was in the mood for some great, true-blue Chinese food. It’s sad to see the street not as crazy busy as it used to be many months ago (or so I’m told), and a lot of them have already been shut down. By the end of the year, the whole place will be decimated 🙁 It’s so disappointing, because we LOVE stuff like this – it really feels like Shanghai, a great little niche with a snapshot of Shanghai’s best and most traditional food offerings. It’s so much fun sitting in the pokey little stalls and it’s all incredibly cheap as well, not to mention delicious.

I’m guessing foreigners don’t go there often, because Chris was like a novelty *lol*. People actually stopped eating to turn around in their seat and STARE at us eating. A bit disturbing but pretty funny 😛 Of course, we joined the queue for Yan’s Fry Dumplings and shared a “liang”, which contained 4 gorgeously plump and juicy dumplings. Amazing, a little old lady was sitting there plowing through 8 (!!!) of these gems all by herself – and slurping it all up with gusto. Mad props to her.

We loved the dumplings. They have a soft spongey exterior (like the BBQ pork buns you get at yumcha restaurants), but the inside is just like a xiao long bao (ie. mince pork). And of course, it has a generous helping of hot tasty soup encased inside. This means that you have to be “in the know” to eat one of these babies – first you take a small nibble of it, and suck out the hot soup. Then you carefully eat the rest of the dumpling. Do it too quickly and you’ll end up with the soup dribbling down your chin, or spurting onto your clothes. It’s DELICIOUS – so hot, so juicy, and so incredibly tasty.

Then it was off to find some noodles. On a whim, we spotted a stall that looked to be a noodle joint, so we sat on these rickety little wooden stools and ordered some noodles with spicy pork. Sounds generic, but it was delicious. The noodles was “freshly pulled” that day, which gave them a smooth, delicious flavour.. and the pork toppings was generous. It looks plain but was incredibly tasty. Loved it.

We left agreeing that we’ll most definitely be going back frequently – considering it’s just 5 mins walk from our place, and that it’ll be all shut down by the end of the year. Time to get our game on and eat our way through the street many times over before it all goes kaput 😛

The famous Wujiang Lu food street

The making of Yan’s Fry Dumplings – famous in Shanghai

GOOD GRIEF THESE ARE GOOD

Meaty goodness inside, nestled in lots of warm tasty broth

Felt like some noodles, and that 2nd last word means “noodles”. SCORE!

Fresh hand-pulled noodles with spicy pork. It was delish!