The Art of Eating- Soup Dumpling Edition

To celebrate the end of training and the end of my first two weeks in Shanghai, a few coworkers and I went out and about on our 4 day weekend.  We travelled to East Nanjing Road, which is a very busy and famous road, that has lots of food and great shopping! We ate some delicious "Shanghai" food... yes, in China there are MILLIONS of different kinds of "chinese" food and it's named after the area that it's from! Shanghai food is famous for it's soup dumplings (xiaolongbao), which are absolutely delicious!!! They are either fried or steamed and are typically filled with pork, vegetables, or shrimp and then a little bit of soup.  There's an art to eating these little treats though, and if you do not know the tricks you can end up scalding your tongue and mouth with piping hot soup (yes, I learned the hard way).  The key is to take a small bite of the dumpling to let out the steam for a few seconds and then you are to slurp... yes I said slurp, the soup out of the inside of the dumpling, before shoving the rest of it into your mouth.  It felt very unattractive to slurp out the soup the first time, however it is not only acceptable to do so but it's encouraged, and hey who am I to go against the expectations of proper dumpling eating etiquette.  They also give you a bottle of vinegar and some pepper to mix in a small bowl that you can dunk your dumplings in before devouring (I highly recommend it). Naturally, I thought it was soy sauce and was a little overgenerous with my dunking... what a surprise it was to discover it was vinegar instead.  Definitely important to use ALL senses in China when trying to determine exactly what you have been presented. After chowing down on our delicious Shanghai treats, we ended our rendezvous at a very small and cute place called "Bell's Bar" for happy hour.  It's located in Tianzifang, which is a very touristy area with lots of small shops, restaurants, and bars, primarily geared towards foreigners.  It's absolutely beautiful to walk around at night, because there are lots of lights and decorations.

East Nanjing Road

Xiaolongbao 

Tianzifang