All Hail to the Dumpling

Shanghai is a city known for its dumplings and really, what's there not to love about a dumpling?  Steamed, fried, gooey on the inside, some filled with vegetables, some with soup.  They're a treat.

Xiaolongbao

Xiaolongbao are a particular Shanghai speciality.  They're small dumplings filled with a gooey vegetable/pork/prawn concoction, depending on your preferences, and then filled with a soupy broth.  To eat, bite a little hole at the top, dump the soup into your Chinese spoon and slurp.  Delight.  

The ones above are buns filled with soup, not dumplings, but follow a similar pattern.  Gimmicky, but in the middle of Yuyuan Garden and Shanghai's most famous dumpling institution, Nan Xiang Xiaolong Mantou, we didn't expect any less.  The outside takeaway window was crammed with Chinese tourists but the restaurant had an abundance of tables.  Prices were Shanghai middle class--we ate a lot and paid in the 300 yuan range.  Having since been to Yang's Dumplings, a fast food institution dotted across the city, I can attest to the expensiveness of our little tourist haven.  

But it was the festive thing to do.  With one week to go until the ushering in of the Year of the Sheep/Goat (the character is the same for both in Mandarin), the lanterns are out and the mood is festive.   This is the Chinese equivalent to Christmas, with all its requisite sales, shopping and frenetic movements.  As an international school teacher, I get both holidays--Christmas and CNY, five weeks apart, win!