Since my last post was about making xiao long bao, sometimes referred to as Shanghai soup dumpling, it seems fitting that I've made it to the Shanghai stop on our travelogue. Shanghai was a very comfortable city for us. English was everywhere, the weather was nice, and the city presented numerous pleasant walks (and a convenient subway for any time walking was not so pleasant).

One of the best walks was around the West Lake in Hangzhou. While technically outside of Shanghai, the lake is a common day trip, and it's not hard to see why: the lake is beautiful, and it is ringed by charming teahouses, perfectly landscaped parks, and some of the best people-watching in all of China. We played cards in the shade overlooking the lake, slowly sipping endless glasses of tea, and watched the designer shoes stroll by.

We also did some exploring around our hostel, and found a popular noodle spot. The place was tiny, with a huge, completely indecipherable menu on the wall, and after a few minutes of holding up the line while wildly paging through our phrasebook, we tried asking the order-taker what he recommended. Though the tactic had been hit-or-miss before, this time was its most spectacular failure. The man took the book, glared at the question on the page, shook his head, and then pointed at the menu on the wall, waving his hand around to indicate its entirety. We still looked confused, so he pointed more vigorously, the look of contempt on his face clear. What kind of idiots were we to suggest that anything at his restaurant was less than the most delicious thing possible!

So we ordered, half at random, half based on a couple recognized characters, and ended up with one beef soup and one mystery soup. I was pretty sure that the mystery was freshwater eels, little tiny slivers of softly scaly flesh, but I spent the whole meal looking up the characters to prove myself correct. The man at the counter glared at me when I took this photo.

And, did you think I would make it to the end of this entry without some soup dumplings? Of course not! We hit up a place downtown for trays of pork, pork and egg, and crab xiao long bao. Far more beautiful than the ones I made over the weekend, these perfect little full moons. The most interesting were the crab, because their flavors worked so differently than the pork dumplings. Both are incredibly rich, both are paired wonderfully with ginger and vinegar dipping sauce. But in the case of the pork dumpling, the tartness of the ginger and vinegar break the intense savoriness of the broth, while with the crab, it acts as a foil to the sweetness instead — two completely different taste combos in the same adorable packaging.

The dumpling shop also offered a mild soup of congealed blood cubes with bean curd strings. The blood cubes had a pleasant, velvety texture, but the soup itself was on the bland side.