Jeannie

"In common Cantonese usage, and especially in Hong Kong, many terms are direct translations from English by sound only. For example, Taxi becomes "Dic See" and Bus becomes "Ba See", Store becomes "See Daw"" I remember seeing See Daw in Hong Kong and it took me ages to work out what it meant! We don't use that term on the mainland to mean shop, we use "dian"

Can anyone clear this up for me? This is the stuff that people eat with plain congee for breakfast right? Kind of soft and slimy. Is this the same stuff as Japanese natto? I've had my suspicions that it might be the same for a while but I'm not sure.

My family always told me that to hold your chopstick high is an indication that you will travel far from home and go a long way in your life. Maybe thats only the saying in Shanghai?!

Garysoup, these photos look fantastic! Love you website by the way, I can remember my Grandmother humming some of the Zhou Xuan songs. And you guys are right about the potsticklers, my memory was playing tricks on me, far too long since I've been back to Shanghai. Thank god I'm going back this December!

Yes! although the ones in the picture seemed a bit too white? The ones in shanghai are maybe cooked over a high heat so the dough is browned a bit more. The xiaolong bao looked pretty good though! I tried to explain to some of my BBC friends (British Born Chinese) and they are mainly from HK. They didn't have a clue what they were, you really can't get them in this country!

Just remembered that when my mum made xiao long bao at home, she kneaded the dough for that with quite a lot of oil as well.

The only shanghainese restaurant in the UK is in London and it's called eCaptial. Its good in that it at least attempts to make shanghainese food but I took my parents there and they weren't too impressed especially after they find out that the chef was from Malaysia and not Shanghai at all! It does make a nice change from all the cantonese restaurants here though, although there are more malaysian cafes in London now. The hong sao rou (belly pork in soy sauce) at this restaurant was ok but I found it far too sweet. I also tried the stir fried yellow eel dish. In shanghai this dish is made with threaded thin river eels and then sprinkled with pepper. They obviously couldn't get the right sort of eel in the UK so the eels were really quite dry and sandy tasting instead of slippery. I think that this the biggest problem here in the UK, you simply can't get the right ingredients! There isn't a big enough chinese community here (in comparison with the US). I've heard also that manchester has some good cantonese restaurants but I've never eaten there so I can't really comment. One thing that really frustrates me about chinese food in the UK is that it is still seen as cheap and unsophisticated food (too many English people still only want egg fried rice and sweet sour chicken after a night in the pub) and it doesn't have the cachet of Japanese or Thai food. There is one restaurant in London called Hakkasan which is the only Chinese restaurant in the UK with a Michelin star. It's very fashionable and expensive. I tried it once and although I was pleasantly surprised (I thought it would pander too much to the western palate) I found the food too salty and also not better than some other chinese restaurants frequented by chinese people but not as well known to westerners. The image of chinese food here really has to be improved! Also I think there is a fundamental difference in attitudes towards what counts for a good restaurant in China and in the West. Too many restaurant review websites go on about the decor etc of Chinese restaurants and don't even mention the food. Decor is not as important to the chinese we tend to concentrate much more on the food. Er, realised that I'm quite a bit off the topic so I'll stop there!

hi aprilmei I can't remember how they are called in mandarin but in shanghainese it's "sang ji mui do" er, thats the best I can do in trying to transliterate shanghainese. They are slightly larger than xiao long bao but they are also very juicy inside. We can't get them at all in the UK and my mum tried to make some at home, she didn't know how to as no one makes them in Shanghai, they just go out and buy them! She had to make it up and guess, the finished version wasn't too bad! My mum kneeded the dough with a lot of oil and she said that this was crucial. The dough had to be very elastic. Sorry I can't be of more help on this.

I'm really surprised that people with a cantonese/hk background have never seen the long triangular dark soy sauce versions! I thought they were the most common types just shows how little I know! These are the ones we have in Shanghai. I love them, the whole point of zhongzi for me is that lovely rich unctuous melting texture that you can only get from a filling of fatty belly pork!. Don't like the other versions very much as I find them too dry and I was never really a big fan of the sweet ones either. The ones we dip in sugar in Shanghai tend to be the plain white ones that don't have any fillings.

Hi, This the first time I've ever posted in ANY forum but I stumbled on this site and thought it was fantastic. As I am Shanghainese and born in Shanghai (and now living in the UK) I couldn't resist posting something on this topic. Xiao long bao fillings do not have any cabbage in them. It is just pure pork mince (sometimes with crab), if it has cabbage or any kind of vegetable in the filling then it is not xiao long bao. You guys in the US are so lucky to be able to get this. We only have one Shanghainese restaurant in the whole of the UK and that was opened recently. The xiao long bao in that restaurant is decent for the UK as it is something which actually resembles the real thing. Usually what they advertise as xiao long bao in dimsum menus of (predominantly) cantonese restaurants is nothing like the real thing at all: no juice in the bun (totally missing the point) fillings with loads of random things and really tough skin. Can you get the griddled potsticker version of xiao long bao in the US? I actually prefer them, they are usually sprinkled with sesame. On the issue of Tang Bao, I think you can think of tang bao as the generic umbrella name for this sort of dumpling. All xiao long bao are tang bao but not all tang bao are xiao long bao! They are bigger than xiao long bao.