Three Times Will Do It – Da Hu Chun in Shanghai, China

Worth the three attempts!

Shengjianbao

As the rain came down, Winnie and I quickly rushed through with our umbrellas, trying to find the restaurant marked on our map. As we hurriedly splashed through the puddles, we passed a familiar wooden sign. Not today, we thought, we're going to try something new. But as soon as we opened the door of the new place, a fly flew out. Then another. There was a swarm of bugs in the restaurant, crawling on the floor, the ceiling, everywhere. And that's when I turned to Winnie and said," hey, maybe we should go to Da Hu Chun."


Da Hu Chun is not your average Chinese eatery – I found it while looking through Michelin recommended restaurants online. It was recommended for "great value," and I can tell you now that Michelin is very correct on that. Well, before I delve into this review, I really need to tell you about how I attempted to come here three times on this trip.

More shengjianbao!

I’ve already told you about the third time (first paragraph), but the first time I tried to get there,we had just checked into our Airbnb and really needed some food – fast. Tired, hungry, maybe a bit hangry. We were all of those, so I pulled up a map and tried to look for Da Hu Chun. Two results popped up: one north and the other south. And both a good enough distance away that I wouldn’t want to walk all the way from one to the other. Winnie and I decided to take the chance and go south. So after walking there, I looked around and the only place open was a fried pork place. Oh well, we tried, guess I’ll have to go north next time. The next day for lunch we walked straight there and entered the temple of cheap Shanghai food called Da Hu Chun.

The architecture of the place is fairly traditional in the Chinese sense, with a lot of lacquered wood in the tables, benches, and posts. There are red lanterns hanging from the ceiling, contributing to the atmosphere of the place, with a TV looping a section of a show in which their restaurant was featured. So how it works here is you order and get your receipt, then walk to the chefs and give them the receipt. They give you the correct amount of whatever you order, then give you a number if there’s more to come. It’s a quick and easy system, with the stress on waiters really reduced to getting a select number of plates onto the table. That being said, the content of the said plates is usually classic Shanghainese food – the main specialty here being the shengjianbao.

Some of the wonton soup!

Shengjianbao translated into English means “pan fried bun”. I’ve made these before on my own, and what happens is you make a bun, put it on the pan, and fry the heck out of it. That makes the bottom crispy. At the same time, you pour water into the sizzling pan and put the lid on it,  creating steam to ensure the fluffiness of the bao. Da Hu Chun does this reasonably well, but one gripe I have is that they don’t seem to heat the bao after initially cooking them, leading to baos that are a bit cold by the time they get to the table. See, when they sell shengjianbao, they don’t keep heating them after cooking them; shengjianbao is therefore one dish you should really hope to get just as a fresh batch comes in. Anyway, we also got our hands on some wonton soup, which was also pretty good  considering the price. There is a reason Michelin recommended this place for good value – we paid about $3-4 USD for a wonton soup and 8 shengjianbao, which would probably cost $15-20 in America. And for the cost, I can overlook some of the gripes I had with the food, which is most importantly clean and safe to eat. So if you’re ever in Shanghai and near The Bund, check out Da Hu Chun – your stomach and your wallet will love you.

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A post shared by Ryan Chen (@stumpyeatsfood) on Jun 17, 2017 at 5:55pm PDT

You can find me on Instagram as @stumpyeatsfood and on yelp at theplumpcat.yelp.com. You can also check out more of my photos on Flickr! If you've got a restaurant recommendation or even a recipe that you think I should try, send it to me at ryanjchen2@gmail.com! Thank you for reading!