Shanghai Uncle

I went to Shanghai for a business trip last week. I had some good food times and some bad food times.

Went to the restaurant, Shanghai Uncle for a bite to eat(ironically I actually do have an uncle who lives in Shanghai...who is Taiwanese!).

Seredipidously it would appear as I found the elusive "tang bao" (soup buns). These, unlike "xiao long bao" are huge buns about the size of a fist that is filled mostly with soup.





You actually use a straw to suck up the soup inside. Being an experience xiao long bao eater *ahem*, I know that the cheap ones usually are filled with oil rather than real soup. So of course, I poured some out to check and it was beautiful, filled with soup, with little oil on top.



Apparently what they do is the buns are actually filled with jellied soup which melts in the heat of the steaming process which turns it into rich stock. The meat that was inside was a bit mushy but the skin was delicate and thin but still sturdy and chewy enough for a good mouthfeel.

I had 2 other dishes as well, smoked fish and spicy dried beancurd roll stuffed with mushrooms but the buns definitely stole the show.