Yang's Fry-Dumpling, Shanghai

Cool. I ducked out onto the streets of Shanghai looking for some simple street food. I didn't even know that I was just down the street from Wujiang Road, a street dedicated to local snacks. One of the places (54/60 Wujiang Road, 6267-6025) was specializing in sheng jian bao, or these pan-fried buns that were filled with meat and soup (yes, as it turned out, this was the same one that Bourdain went to). They were a bit like xiao long bao but were much thicker-skinned...and pan-fried instead of steamed.

I learned the hard way about the soup part though. Taking a bite into one of these bad boys elicited a squirt of scalding hot soup right into my face, no doubt to the amusement of some of the locals that I sat next to. They must have sat in shock looking at this ignorant guy losing all of his precious soup as it dripped out of the bun. I tried the bite-a-little-hole technique that one does with xiao long bao, but couldn't get it right given how thick the skin was. Well, it all went down nicely either way, especially when complimented with that chili seasoning on the tables. And it was all only 4 RMB (US$0.50) for a set of four. Rock on.