（又）吃上海生煎包和小笼包

排队买‘小杨生煎包’。

We had to take the man to try the famous xiaolongbao in Shanghai. He does like this little bao, if done well. To Huanghe Road (黄河路) it was for the steamed 'JiaJia Tang Bao' (佳家汤包) and the pan-fried 'Xiao Yang Sheng Jian Bao' (小杨生煎包).

I can't go to these places on my own because the quantity is too much for me, and the Chinese bao, being typically pork and meat-based, often there's very little I could eat. But I know at 'JiaJia Tang Bao', they do a pure crab meat version that's absolutely heavenly. So I totally love it. It comes in a basket of 12, and I can only do 6 at one go, even if that number makes up one meal. 

For lunch today, it would be all savory steaming bao and nothing else. By the road outside 'Xiao Yang Sheng Jian Bao' where we chose to stand and eat, the man was grappling with his chopsticks. Ahahahaha. We couldn't stop giggling at him. He couldn't wrestle with both slurping of the soup and holding up the bao. He was the last to finish his one cute bao.

While standing around with a styrofoam box of browned bao, we could see across the street into Jia Jia Tang Bao. There was no queue (Hurrah for Chinese New Year in a city mostly devoid of its inhabitants), but the tables were full. So we simply kept an eye on the shopfront to ensure that no horde of humans rushed in to lengthen the wait. Once done, we hurried over for more eating.

佳家‘鸡鸭血汤’。

At 'JiaJia Tang Bao', they had ran out of stocks for most items. We came at 2.15pm. The friends said they always run out of the popular items (pork and meat-based stuff, and prawns) by 11am. The crab meat based ones are usually still available. We easily got a table and ordered 6 baskets of bao. I LOVE the one with crab meat (纯蟹粉).  Absolutely delicious. The man loved them too. However, being the one with the most adventurous tastebuds at this table, he also had a bowl of soup of chicken and duck blood. He didn't care very much for it after all. Heh.

佳家‘蟹粉‘小笼包。含有猪肉。

We've had good xiaolongbaos, and we've had fabulous ones. These tiny street stores in Shanghai sell out-of-this-world jewels. Or perhaps we've been in the city only during winter, I guess half the yummy-ness came from eating hot stuff in the cold. Always comforting. Hot steaming buns and soup in 3°C. Perfect.

We were ridiculously stuffed from eating so many baskets of bao between 4 humans. We took a long stroll around the streets, going nowhere in particular and just looking at the street sights, random humans, buildings, architecture, and simply soaking up the uncrowded streets and vibes of a historic city.

我喜欢的‘纯蟹粉’小笼包。