Today we are going to try some Shanghainese food. The restaurant is in Tsim Sha Tsui, not far from the Avenue of Stars we visited a few days ago. Here is another view of the Harbor, where the cruise terminal is. On the left the very top building is International Finance Center, the tallest building in Hong Kong.
One of the most famous food from Shanghai is the Xiao Long Bao. We are reading the restaurant's placemat, which has a story about this dumpling.
The dumpling (bao) comes in small bamboo steam basket (xiao long). Traditionally, pork is used as filling. Chilled meat gelatin is wrapped inside, so once it heats up, the dumpling is filled with hot, juicy soup.
We also order some ramen noodles. Ramen literally means "pulled noodle" and the noodle is made by stretching a round of dough, folding it and pulling again, repeating until you get many strands of noodles. Sounds easy in theory but takes lots of practice to get noodles that are thin, uniform in width and not broken apart. We can kind of see the chef at work pulling the noodles, but he is working too fast for us to take good pictures.
We first enjoy the Za Jiang Mein. (Jajangmyeon in Korean) It is a popular Northern China dish with minced meat and bean paste on top of noodle. You can call it a Chinese style spaghetti bolognese.
Next is the hot & sour noodle, which is noodle in hot and sour soup.
This is a dish of fried eel, a little crunchy and sweet.
Turnip pancake.
And last, something sweet to end the meal. Steamed buns with a sweet paste. Usually the paste is made with azuki beans or lotus seed or egg custard.
