Shanghainese food: dishes and noodles, and how to say them
Every guide to Shanghainese food gives you the characters and the Mandarin. This one gives you the Shanghainese: how the city’s own dishes and noodles are said where they were invented, and the Mandarin habit that gives a learner away on each of them.
Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Shanghainese examples play the recordings from Verbavia’s course, made with a Shanghainese voice; Mandarin examples play a Mandarin voice.
What this page is and is not
It is not a recipe collection and not a restaurant list; there are better ones, and they are easy to find. What none of them has is how the dishes are said in the language of the city they come from. The best-known English pages on Shanghai food give characters and Mandarin pinyin and no Wu pronunciation at all, so that is the gap this fills.
One honest caveat before the lists. In a Shanghai restaurant today you will mostly hear Mandarin, and nobody expects a visitor to order in Shanghainese. Read this as the local layer underneath the standard one, rather than as a script. Where a reading below is missing, it is because we could not confirm it, and a guessed reading would most likely be a Mandarin one in disguise.
本帮菜, the city's own cooking
本帮菜 pen paon tshe ‘Shanghai's own cuisine’ is the name for what Shanghai cooks for itself. 本帮 means our own lot: it is home cooking, as against 海派菜, the Shanghai-style cooking that absorbed Suzhou, Zhejiang and Western influences after the treaty port opened. The four characters used to describe 本帮菜 are 浓油赤酱 — thick oil and red sauce, meaning a great deal of soy and sugar, cooked down until it glazes.
The taste words you need are short, and they are not said the Mandarin way:
- 甜 die ‘sweet’ — and Shanghai food genuinely is, which surprises people.
- 咸 ghae ‘salty’ · 酸 soe ‘sour’ · 辣 laeh ‘spicy’ · 鲜 sie ‘fresh, savoury’
- 好吃 hau chih ‘delicious’ — literally good to eat, and the highest thing you can say at a table.
- 味道 vi dau ‘flavour’ · 油腻 yeu nyi ‘greasy’ · 新鲜 sin sie ‘fresh’
The famous Shanghainese dishes
The dishes a Shanghainese speaker would name first, with the name as the city says it and the Mandarin habit that marks someone who learned it elsewhere. For most of them the characters are shared and the trap is the sound: Mandarin reads 肉 as ròu, Shanghainese as nyoh.
| Dish | Shanghainese | What it is | The Mandarin trap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 小笼馒头 | 小笼馒头 siau lon moe deu, or just 小笼 siau lon | soup dumplings: a thin wrapper round pork and jellied stock that melts as they steam | 小笼包 xiǎolóngbāo. The word Shanghai uses is 馒头, not 包 — see below |
| 生煎馒头 | 生煎馒头 san tsie moe deu, usually just 生煎 san tsie | pan-fried pork buns, crisp on the bottom, thicker than a soup dumpling because the dough is leavened | 生煎包 shēngjiānbāo, the standard written name, for the same reason |
| 红烧肉 | 红烧肉 ghon sau nyoh | red-braised pork belly, cooked long in soy and sugar: the dish 浓油赤酱 describes | none in the word; the trap is hóngshāoròu read aloud |
| 腌笃鲜 | 腌笃鲜 ie toh sie | a spring soup of salt pork, fresh pork and bamboo shoot, simmered for hours | reading 笃 as a Mandarin word. In Mandarin it means sincere or earnest; here it is the Shanghainese verb for simmering — see below |
| 排骨年糕 | 排骨年糕 ba kueh nyie kau | a flattened, fried pork chop served with slices of rice cake in a sweet sauce | none in the word; páigǔ niángāo is simply the Mandarin reading |
| 馄饨 | 馄饨 wen den; 大馄饨 and 小馄饨 siau wen den | wontons, in two kinds: big ones with a filling you can bite into, and small ones with thin wrappers and a scrap of filling, floating in broth | reaching for another region’s word. 馄饨 is the standard word too; 抄手 is Sichuan’s and 云吞 is Cantonese. In Shanghai the question is not which word but which size |
| 粢饭团 | 粢饭团 | a fist-sized roll of sticky rice pressed round a fried dough stick, eaten for breakfast | 饭团, which is what Taiwan calls it; Ningbo and Hong Kong say 粢饭 |
| 响油鳝丝 | 响油鳝丝 shian yeu zoe sy | stir-fried strips of eel, finished at the table with a spoon of sizzling oil — the ringing oil of the name | none in the word; the trap is the sound |
| 烤麸 | 烤麸 khau fu | braised wheat gluten, spongy and sweet, eaten cold at the start of a meal | none; kǎofū is the Mandarin reading |
| 蟹壳黄 | 蟹壳黄 ha khoh waon | a baked flaky pastry, named for being the colour of a cooked crab shell | none; xièkéhuáng is the Mandarin reading |
| 八宝饭 | 八宝饭 paeh pau vae | eight-treasure glutinous rice, sweet, served at the end | none; bābǎofàn is the Mandarin reading |
| 大闸蟹 | 大闸蟹 du zaeh ha | hairy crab, in season roughly late September to December | reading 大 as da. Shanghainese has two readings of 大, and this word takes the everyday one, du |
Two of those have no reading here on purpose. The course has no confirmed reading for 粢, so 粢饭团 is left as characters. And 大 is da in some Shanghainese food words — 大饼 da pin ‘sesame flatbread’ — but du in others, such as 大闸蟹, so we have not guessed which one 大馄饨 takes.
The two words that are actually Shanghainese
Most dish names are ordinary Chinese read with Shanghainese sounds. Two are not, and they are the ones worth knowing.
馒头, not 包子. In most of China a filled steamed bun is a 包子 and 馒头 is the unfilled kind. Shanghai and the Wu-speaking region use 馒头 moe deu ‘steamed bun’ for both, which is why the dumplings are properly 小笼馒头 and the pan-fried buns are 生煎馒头. Hearing someone say 小笼包 in Shanghai is a small tell that they learned the word somewhere else. The course does teach 包子 pau tsy ‘bun’ as well, because Shanghainese speakers use it too; it is the dish names that keep 馒头.
笃, to simmer. The soup 腌笃鲜 ie toh sie ‘salt pork and bamboo shoot soup’ is named with three verbs and adjectives rather than ingredients: 腌 salted, 笃 simmered slowly, 鲜 fresh. The middle one is the Shanghainese word — 笃 toh ‘to simmer slowly’ — and it is the sound of a pot ticking over a low flame. A dish named after a noise is a good dish.
Shanghainese noodles
Noodles are 面 mie ‘noodles’ — mie, where Mandarin says miàn — and a Shanghai noodle shop is organised around one idea: the 浇头 ciau deu ‘topping’. The noodles are cooked in one pot and the topping in another, and the topping goes on at the end, so a menu is really a list of toppings: a 浇头面 is noodles with one. What you choose next is whether the bowl comes in broth, 汤面 thaon mie ‘noodles in soup’, or tossed dry, 拌面 boe mie ‘tossed noodles’.
| Noodles | Shanghainese | What they are |
|---|---|---|
| 阳春面 | 阳春面 yan tshen mie | plain noodles in broth seasoned with lard and soy, with no topping at all — the bare noodles, 光面, that a shop is judged by. The name is said to come from 小阳春, a name for the tenth lunar month, because the bowl once cost ten fen |
| 葱油拌面 | 葱油拌面 tshon yeu boe mie | noodles tossed in scallions fried slowly in oil until dark, with soy and often dried shrimp. Tossed, not in soup: that is what 拌 says |
| 大排面 | 大排面 | noodles with a pork chop marinated, fried and then red-braised, its sauce poured over the bowl |
| 辣肉面 | 辣肉面 laeh nyoh mie | noodles with a spiced minced-pork topping — one of the few hot dishes Shanghai claims, and still sweet underneath |
| 焖肉面 | 焖肉面 'men nyoh mie | noodles with a slab of pork belly braised until it half melts into the broth, a dish Shanghai shares with Suzhou |
| 黄鱼面 | 黄鱼面 waon ng mie | yellow croaker noodles in a clear, fresh fish broth |
| 两面黄 | 两面黄 lian mie waon | noodles fried as a flat cake until both sides are golden — the name means yellow on both sides — with a stir-fried topping such as shrimp or shredded pork poured over |
The trap here is mostly the one syllable. 面 is mie in every one of these, and a learner who says miàn has switched language mid-word. 大排面 is left without a reading for the same reason as 大馄饨. To order, name the noodles and let the shop do the rest: 一碗阳春面 ih uoe yan tshen mie ‘a bowl of yangchun noodles’.
The four heavenly kings of breakfast
四大金刚 sy da cin kaon ‘the four heavenly kings’ is Shanghai's nickname for its classic breakfast, the four things sold together on a street corner:
- 大饼 da pin ‘sesame flatbread’
- 油条 yeu diau ‘fried dough stick’
- 豆浆 deu tsian ‘soy milk’, drunk salty as often as sweet
- 粢饭, sticky rice — usually pressed round a 油条 as the 粢饭团 above
The nickname is recent, from the 1980s, though a Shanghai newspaper was already naming the first three as the city's favourite breakfast in 1936. It is a collective name rather than a set meal: nobody orders all four.
Enough to order
Short sentences, all built from words on the thousand-word list:
| Shanghainese | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 菜单 tshe tae | the menu | Ask with 我要看看菜单 or just point |
| 我要搿个。 ngu iau geh gheh. | I'll have this one. | 搿个 is this one — the single most useful phrase in any restaurant |
| 招牌菜 tsau ba tshe | the house speciality | Worth asking for; Shanghai restaurants have strong opinions |
| 我吃素。 ngu chih su. | I'm vegetarian. | 素 is the vegetarian side, 荤 the meat side |
| 几钿？ ci die? | How much? | 钿 is money in Shanghainese, where Mandarin says 钱 |
| 忒贵哉。 theh kue tse. | That's too expensive. | 忒 is too; 哉 closes the sentence |
| 好吃！ hau chih! | Delicious! | Say it to the person who cooked it |
| 我吃好哉。 ngu chih hau tse. | I'm finished. | Literally I've eaten well |
| 结账 cih tsan | the bill | Or 买单 ma tae, which is what most people say |
| 打包 tan pau | to take away | Literally to pack up |
Two more words for the room: 服务员 voh vu yoe ‘waiter’ to call someone over, and 老板 lau pae ‘boss’, which is what you call the owner of a small place and is friendlier than it looks.
How much of this to bother with
If you are visiting for a week, learn 好吃 hau chih ‘delicious’ and 几钿 ci die ‘how much’, say 小笼 rather than 小笼包, and stop. All three are short, all three are audibly not Mandarin, and using them at the right moment does more for you than a memorised paragraph.
If you are staying, the food vocabulary is a good place to push further, because it is the part of the language that is still used at home by people who otherwise switch to Mandarin all day. What to say elsewhere in the city is on the phrases page, and the numbers behind every price are on the numbers page.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Shanghai cuisine — Benbang cuisine, and 浓油赤酱
- Chinese Wikipedia: 上海菜 — 本帮菜 against 海派菜, and the dishes and snacks named here
- Chinese Wikipedia: 小笼包 — the Shanghai and Wu use of 馒头 for filled buns, and 南翔小笼馒头
- Wiktionary: 饅頭 — the Wu sense, a steamed bun with filling
- Wiktionary: 小籠饅頭 — Shanghainese reading; 小籠包 as the standard written name
- Wiktionary: 生煎饅頭 — Shanghainese reading; 生煎包 as the standard name
- Wiktionary: 餛飩 — Shanghainese reading, and 抄手 (Sichuan) and 雲吞 (Cantonese)
- Wiktionary: 醃篤鮮 — Shanghainese reading, and 篤 as simmering
- Wiktionary: 粢飯糰 — the breakfast roll; 飯糰 in Taiwan, 粢飯 in Ningbo and Hong Kong
- Wiktionary: 大閘蟹 — Shanghainese du for 大 in this word
- Wiktionary: 大餅 — Shanghainese da for 大 in this word
- Chinese Wikipedia: 阳春面 — lard and soy, and the 小阳春 / ten-fen origin of the name
- Chinese Wikipedia: 葱油拌面 — a Suzhou–Shanghai noodle, also 开洋葱油拌面
- Chinese Wikipedia: 两面黄 (上海) — noodles fried golden on both sides, with a topping
- The Paper (澎湃新闻), 2019: fifteen Shanghai 浇头面 — 大排面, 辣肉面, 焖肉面, 黄鱼面, 阳春面 as 光面
- Chinese Wikipedia: 上海四大金刚 — the term, its 1980s coinage, and the 1936 newspaper reference
- The Woks of Life: Shanghai cuisine — 笃 as the Shanghainese word for simmering slowly, in Yan Du Xian
- Chinese Wikipedia: 蟹壳黄
- Chinese Wikipedia: 响油鳝糊 and 烤麸
- Wikivoyage: Wu phrasebook — ordering, the bill, 我吃素, 忒贵哉