BEIJING, June 25 -- Shanghai Snacks could be traced back to as early as the Southern Song Dynasty and became more exquisite in cooking when Shanghai grew into an important city in early Ming Dynasty. After Shanghai was listed as a trading port by the end of the Qing Dynasty, various regional snacks were assimilated, developed and refined, bringing forth the specialty of Shanghai style. A while selection of Shanghai snacks comprises four must-haves for locals—baked sesame pan cake, deep-fired dough sticks, soybean milk, sticky rice combo—as well as dozens of kinds of pastry, bun, stuffed dumpling and rice and cake. Different from pure sweet taste of Canton-Hong Kong style or hot and spicy flavor of Sichuan-Chongqing type, Shanghai snack is famed for being light, fresh and tasty, and has long been diners'favorite for its characteristics.

He Feng Lou beings all Chinese snacks together and introduces 144 snacks and dishes from 8 major styles and their 16 sub-cuisines. The two-storey restaurant serves on the first floor buffet-style Chinese cuisine numbering 300 in kinds according to their origins such as Shanghai, Sichuan & Hunan, Taiwan, Jiangsu, etc. The second floor id featured with specialty Chinese and overseas snacks including Japanese Teppanyaki, popular with tourists.

Specialty: steamed juicy crab roe bun, marinated pond snail

Address: 10 Wenchang Road

Tel: 021-63557878

Transportation: Bus 55, 930, 932, 980

Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, situated by nine-twist-bridge at Old City God Temple, is an attraction in Yu Garden area, formerly named marble boat hall. In the restaurant with latticework windows, it takes a short while to have hot steamed buns serve. With chopsticks, bite a small hole, suck the juice and then dip into vinegar sauce before putting into your mouth-smooth, juicy and luscious.

Specialty: recipe-made crabmeat bun, juicy crab roe shrimp ball

Address: 85 Yuyuan Road

Tel: 021-63554206

Transportation: Beijia Line, Xianghua Line, Hu’nan Line, Luonan Line

Guang Ming Cun Restaurant

Guang Ming Cun Restaurant, open in 1948, is remarkable for dim-sum and snacks with over ten dishes awarded "Shanghai specialty snacks". Those snacks are highly appreciated including juicy chicken wanton soup, fired crabmeat stuffed bun and steamed pork stuffed bun. Some signature dishes are superb like crystal shrimp, peppery beef filet with honey, crispy duck, turtle and snake soup with herbs, eye brow-shaped crispy cake and milky date. The restaurant is popular with customers for its inexpensive piece, authentic taste, comfortable ambience and excellent service.

Specialty: juicy chicken wanton soup, fires crab meat stuffed bun

Address: 588 Huaihai Road (M.)

Tel: 021-53067878

Transportation: Bus 42, 911, 945

Lu Bo Lang Restaurant

Lu Bo Lang Restaurant, located by nine-twist-bridge at Old City God Temple, has an archaic, elegant and peaceful surrounding matching the elegance of Mid-Pond-Pavilion tea house next door. It is well-known by carefully selected raw materials and meticulous preparations, highly praised by gourmands from home and abroad. The signature dish "osmanthus cake" is so sticky in texture that gets stuck on plate or chopsticks but not tooth and feels smooth in the mouth carrying faint fragrance of rice wine, which puzzled former U.S President Clinton who had practiced with chopsticks for one month.

Specialty: eye brow-shaped crispy cake, sticky osmanthus cake, eight-treasure duck

Address: 115-131 Yuyang Road

Tel: 021-63280602

Transportation: Bus 11, 64, 66, 126, 920

Wang Jia Sha Restaurant

Wang Jia Sha Restaurant, lying at the crossing Nanjing Road (W) and Shimen Road, enjoys high popularity in Shanghai for its wide selection, meticulous preparations and delicious taste. The most popular four must-eats are tasty and fried stuffed bun, delicious shrimp wanton soup, crunchy red bean pastry and crispy double-side fried noodle. Nowadays the restaurant has created new crab meat dim-sum series and dishes, unique in snack preparations.

Specialty: crispy double-side fried noodles with shrimp, dumpling, eight-treasure rice pudding

Address: 805Nanjing Road (W.)

Tel: 021-625330404

Transportation: Bus 21, 17, 112, 921

Feng Yu Restaurant

Feng Yu Restaurant with black characters on orange board is not spacious buy snug. On an early morning of autumn or winter, you may hang on in here, serves with hot fried stuffed bun with chives plus fried tofu rice noodle soup. You can’t wait to use chopsticks. The white skin broken once bit, warm delicious soup and golden dough crusts are so luscious that you ignore the grease of buns. Inexpensive and tasty, Fengyu is fairly popular in Shanghai.

Specialty: fried stuffed bun, rice soup with fried tofu

Address: 41 Runjin Road (NO.2)

Tel: 021-53061742

Transportation: Metro Line 1 (Shaanxi Road (S) Station), Tourist Line 10, Bus 26, 945

Qiao Jia Shan Restaurant

Xian De Lai Restaurant serves the national favorite pork ribs fried with glutinous rice cake. Established at Lane 177, Xizang Road (S.) in 1921, it used to cater for low-end diners, hence the title "Xian De Lai" and "King or pork ribs". The name "Xian De Lai" implies "luscious, virtuous and prosperous". The pork ribs are made like fans, golden in color, delicious in taste and tender in texture. The rice cakes are white, smooth and chewy.

Specialty: pork ribs fried with glutinous rice cake

Address: 98 Yunnan Road (S.)

Tel: 021-63366108

Transportation: Bus 23, 123, 926, 980

Shen Da Cheng Restaurant

Shen Da Cheng Reataurant was set up in 6th year of Qing Dynasty Emperor Guang Xu (1875). The founder Shen Ajin combined the best of dim-sum and traditional snacks, careful in selecting row materials and meticulous in preparations. Reputed as "king of dim-sum in Shanghai", some popular specialties include longevity peach-shaped cake, osmanthus cake slices, sticky rice ball with red bean paste and glutinous rice dumpling in bamboo leaves. Shanghai-style dumplings in bamboo leaves retain the feature of being fragrant, chewy and tasty, and curry chicken dumpling, the first of its kind, was produced. A glutinous rice dumpling in bamboo leaves going with a bowl of wanton soup sell very well at Shen Da Cheng.

Specialty: sticky rice cake slices, glutinous rice with bean paste, spinach-dyed sticky rice ball with red bean paste

Address: 636 Nanjing Road (E.)

Tel: 021-63225615

Transportation: Metro Line 1 (People's Square Station), Tourist Line 10, Bus 19, 37

Cang Lang Ting

Cang Lang Ting is an old-brand restaurant among Suzhou-style noodle shops, features in chewy noodles and strong-flavored dressing. The pastries made are just as good as noodles. The specialties of "tri-color pasty" vary with the season. In winter and spring, they mainly sell crispy gingko cake and sweet New Year cake. Pure Brightness Festival is supplied eith Suzhou-style glutinous rice ball with red bean paste. In summer there are sticky rice ball with stie- fried meat fillings, square cake, Fu Ling cake with nuts, etc. Double-Nine cake is sold at the festical. Moon cake with fresh pork filling is a treat at Mid-Autumn Festival. Throughout the year Dingsheng (bound to win) cake, longevity fish noodle, shrimp noodle, Suzhou- style noodles and snacks.

Address: 1465 Fuxing Road (M)

Tel: 021-64372222

Transportation: Metro Line 1 (Changshu Road Station), Bus 02

Gong De Lin

Gong De Lin is the leading restaurant for "veggie food in the shape of meat dishes". The dishes are carefully selected, meticulously prepared and artistically presented. A variety of tasty and nutritional choices are goof foe health in all seasons. Gong De Lin's vegetarian buns and noodles are popular with diners. The vegetarian moon cakes have won the award "China’s best moon cake" and "famous Chinese pastry".

Specialty: vegetarian bun. Moon cake

Address: 445 Nanjing Road (W.)

Tel: 021-63270218

Transportation: Metro Line 2 (Nanjing Road (W) Station), Bus 20, 37, 112

Wu Fang Zhai Dim-sum Restaurant

Wu Fang Zhai Dim-sum Restaurant was established in 1958. The pastries are made with five recipe-made natural herbal fillings, namely, rose, osmanthus, pine, lotus (or mint), hence the name "Wu Fang Zhai" (literally "five fragrance restaurant"). They are varied in seasons such as glutinous rice ball with red bean paste in Pure Brightness Festival, pyramid shaped sticky rice dumpling in bamboo leaves, Double-Nine cake at the festival, eight treasure rice and sweet rice cake in Spring Festival. The "three sweetness", namely sweet taro, sweet potato and sweet rice-filled lotus roots are most sought-after in decades.

Specialty: glutinous rice dumpling in bamboo leaves, pastries and cakes

Address: 938 Pubei Road

Tel: 021-54198439

Transportation: Bus 43, 830

(Source: china.org.cn)