ULTIMATE Shanghai STREET FOOD Breakfast Tour in French Concession | Shanghai, China

And right next to the restaurant, here you can see the guy making the pot stickers. They look so delicious. He just keeps turning it around, turning it around, then he lets it sit there, obviously leave the steam inside, and he opens it, keeps turning it, turning it, turning it until they're done. And they're called pot stickers because they stick to the pot, obviously. Good morning everyone, this is David Hoffman from David's Bin here in Shanghai, China with my boy Lee from Untour Food Tours. And this morning we're going to go on a street food breakfast tour and tell me a little bit more about it. Sure, first we're going to walk through the park and see what local people do in the park in the morning. But we're going to go down the street that way and have some Four Heavenly Breakfast King items here in Shanghai already. Then along the way we're going to stop more, eat more, stop more, eat more, and take a break finally. Go through the lane houses, see where local people live for 150 years already. And then we're going to go to the wet market, have some hemp noodle, we're going to end the tour with some XLB xiaolongbao. Perfect, and if you guys don't know about Untour Food Tours, they have some of the best food tours in Shanghai, they also have food tours in Beijing. And yeah, when you come here you definitely have to go on a tour with them. It's amazing, last night I did one and it was so delicious. Dude, I'm still full. Good for you. Alright, let's go eat. And so this is Tai Chi, this is the morning exercise. I love it. Everywhere around Shanghai, I've seen people do this in the park. Yeah. We're in the middle of the former French concession, and this is basically the center, the park that we just walked through. That's the Xiangyang Park, that's built in the 1930s, originally for the French children in the 1930s. So here we go, we see lots of different types of buildings around here, some are old, and this one right here, this is basically the mansion hotel, this is where one of the notorious gangsters had, it was his headquarter over here before. Oh wow. His name is Big Ears Du, Du Yuesheng. The Four Heavenly Breakfast King items here, those are the very local style of breakfast, but they can be found elsewhere as well. But we're gonna go in here and sit down and try all of them. This is like an old school restaurant, it feels more like a diner, and it's like communal seating, so if you don't have seats for your own table, you obviously sit with other people, and we have our friend next to us eating, right? And here we have four different dishes, so we have soy milk, right? Soy milk. What's that again? And this is the savory version of the sticky rice ball, with some shredded pork, pork floss, and a little bit of the salted duck egg, and a little bit of the salted vegetable in there as well, pickles basically. And then you have the normal, typical Chinese breakfast, this is the churro, Chinese churro, but it's called youtiao, translated to be oil stick. And the very last one of all of it, this is the sweet version of the daping, it's basically Chinese flatbread. What you can do is basically rip it into different parts and dip into it if you want, and eat it like that, or you can rip it into smaller parts. And just throw it in there? Throw it in there, and eat it like cereal, basically. That absorbs it. Exactly. This is like how we do churros in Spain, right? But with chocolate. Mmm. It has the same taste as the churro in Spain, very similar. This one doesn't have any sugar on top, usually over there they put sugar. Mmm. Start dropping it in. Very oily. Oh, I love this, man. Mmm. But my hands are like cool oil. So then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to push it down a little bit. Yeah, this is like a Chinese cereal, in a way, right? Put it up, let it absorb the soy milk. Alright. This is mine, okay? Mmm. I love this cereal. So I'm going to grab the sticky rice ball. Mmm. Oh, wow. Lots of different spices in there. Nice egg. Chewy, dense, very sticky. Wow, this is great. Mmm. What spice is that? Pickled vegetable right here. Oh, yeah? That you'll be able to see in the wet market as well. If you go in there. I really love this ball. Mmm. Oh, that one is strong. So filling. There you go. There's the purple sticky rice, and also the soy milk. in here as well. So it's two sticky rice. With one, you will last the whole morning to lunch. I ate half of it though. We have still one more. This one. Mmm. Crispy biscuit. What's inside? Like butter? Or? Sugar paste. It's delicious, but I'm going to hold off for later. I'm going to finish this. Yeah. Me too. Mmm. Delicious milk. Delicious. Dude, I think that's it. I mean, I'm done. I don't need to eat anymore. We still have like three more spots. As soon as you exit the restaurant, right here on the left, you can see them frying up the churros. The guy, basically he breaks up the dough, he throws it in the fryer, they let it sit there for like two minutes, they take it out. There's more than churros though. There's like also empanadas or chive dumplings. I call it empanadas because that's what we call it down, you know, in Miami. But basically it's fried dumplings with chives. They also have some other pastries, a lot of fried stuff here. Very filling, very greasy. I love it, man. It's a good way to start the day. Awesome. This is amazing. This is like the best thing ever. To see like that, how they roll it and how they put it together. Just incredible. Next, we're going to have some tu jia bing. Just in case you wonder what that is, let's find out. The next stop is this small hole in the wall and what they're doing here is they're making like a savory pancake with some red sauce. And what is this? So some chili sauce and basically sweet chili sauce and sometimes they put the sweet wheat paste as well. But this is the sweet chili sauce and this is usually called the thousand layer pancakes but there's only seven layers maybe. Look at this. It's very thick, right? It's a very thick pancake. I haven't seen it like this before. This looks like something I've eaten in Greece where it's like many layers of dough, you know. Seven layers. It's a bit hot, eh? Watch out. It's hot. Mmm. Nice and crispy on the outside. Soft on the inside. Mmm. Lots of layers. Wow. I didn't get that much of the sauce though. Can I get the other one? Get the sauce one. So I pull it on this side. You can pull it from the other side. Here you go. Oh wow. It's not hot. It's like a, almost like a holland sauce. Mmm. It's so good. I love the sauce. The sauce is really rich. Mmm. A little hot. Like a little hot. Mmm. Nice amount of layers. It's almost like a very thick pizza, you know. Getting hot. Hitting me. And this area, as you can see, a lot of cool Ho Nguo is everywhere. Ho Nguo here, they're having soup. Here they have like duck, chicken. And over there they're having like a billion buns and dumplings, right? Mmm hmm. And we're going there next? I knew it. It looks so good. Not to go there. So this is the baozi that we saw from across the street and they have different flavors. Basically divided into two categories, sweet and savory. So sweet is with sometimes with black sesame paste, egg custard, and also red bean paste as well. And then the savory has two different versions, sometimes with pork, otherwise you have the vegetarian option with the shepherd's purse that we tried last night, with the green vegetables, stir fried with the sticky rice cake. And then we also have some dried tofu, sometimes some mushrooms in there as well. So that's the vegetarian, savory version. As you can see, they have so many different buns. As he said, you know, sweet and savory. There's a ginormous variety. I think easily like 20 plus different types. And they're only 2 each. 2 yen each. Really affordable. I think it's like 25 cents, 30 cents. It's a huge line right now. So what we're going to do is later we're going to come back, grab it, and then go eat. So this is the jianbing we're going to get from over here, from this lady. And then we're going to line up and get some jianbing actions taken as well. So very soon you'll be able to see how she make it and how simple it is, but how delicious it can be. This is one of my favorite things. I had it yesterday for breakfast. It's a delicious pancake. It's more like a crepe. Very thin. Right? They put egg. Then they put all these different toppings. The best part is the sauce. It's like a spicy sauce. It's a little bit of a sweet sauce. You can also put different things. They usually put fried wonton skin, which gives it a nice crunch. Oh, it is so delicious. I can't wait for this one. I brought my appetite for this one. And here we go. My favorite thing to eat in Shanghai for breakfast. Jianbing. Jianbing it is. Jianbing. Yes. Oh my god. It's a pack of flavors, isn't it? I love the fried wonton and the mix between the spice and the sweet. Yep. You know? Cheers, my man. Cheers. Every time I think about this right now, my mouth is watering. And I love the cilantro in here. If you don't like the cilantro, you can ask them not to put it. It's okay. You can also put other things, right? They have chicken. They have some sausages. They also can put the whole churro, the youtiao in there as well. In this cold weather, this is a must. That last bite was a huge mix of the sauces. Very spicy and at the same time it's sweet, man. That's what I love about it. It's so sweet at the same time. Spice and crunchy. Cilantro though. That gives it the best taste. Like you have to have it with cilantro. And there's a huge line here. As you can see, this is like breakfast time. Everybody's out here. It's like so many people are buying food right now. Personally, this is my number one. I think it's going to be my number one forever. Same here. Alright, right next door we're going to have some... Well, hopefully they still have it. Because usually they run out. The Sheng Jian and also Guo Tie. Exactly what they are all about. They also have soup in there. But let's find out what exactly they are. We're having the Ji Cai wonton. Basically, it's the shepherd's purse again inside. And also with a little bit of a pork. And this is the wonton. But this is called Gan Bang Wonton because there is no soup. So it's a dry mixed wonton. There is sauce but there is no soup. First thing you do is pick up the chopsticks. Grab a wonton. Oh, it looks incredible. Wow, that soup is delicious. Great mix between the pork and the... What is it called again? Shepherd's purse. Spring onion outside. Oh, super juicy and delicious. Oh my god, I could eat a few more of these. Guo Tie. So they also have soup in there. Guo is pot. Tie means to stick. So they are literally called the potstickers. They also just like the soup dumplings that we had last night. They have soup in there. So it's quite dangerous. So don't bite it. It may burn your tongue, your lips, your temple. Worst case scenario, explode. Affect your neighbors. This thing everybody here do is they take a little nibble. And then they start sucking the soup out. To get it like... Yeah, let it breathe. Because if not, it's way too hot. Oh, they look so freaking amazing. These potstickers look a little bigger and a little more crispy than the ones I've had in America. Here we go. Crispy bottom. It's cooked with water as well. You see the soup coming out already. So that's hot. I'll suck it out as well. This one I poke it open. Otherwise you can bite a hole as well. And then slurp it. They have a little bit of sesame oil in here as well. So it tastes really good. So then you can bite in. I'm so excited to try these potstickers. Oh, it's like boiling. Dip it in here though. So good. Yeah, I just can't bite into it yet. You gotta wait a sec. That's the only problem. You gotta give it a second. It's way too hot. You don't want to burn your tongue and then you'll have cat tongue. Basically the whole time I've been like this. Like dying. I'm gonna get some of these chilies like a tiny bit. Put it right on top. I'm all about chili life. Nice blob of pork. I love it, man. Love a potsticker. I like how it's burnt on the bottom too. This one I gotta add some though. Maybe a little more. If you like spice, you gotta go all in. These wontons are incredible. So the very first one you see a little black color on top of it. This is the black sesame. Whereas the other one that you see there's a yellow top on the side or on the top as well. This is the egg custard. This is how they differentiate all the steamed buns. Otherwise they all look similar. You can't tell on the side but you can tell on the top. Alright, so what we did is we broke it up into quarters so it's easier to eat. This is the black sesame. Black sesame, I guess. It almost tastes like chocolate. It's like a chocolate bun. We still have the egg custard so egg custard. Look at that. Nice yellow egg custard. That one's super sweet. This one's better than the other one but the egg custard is just ridiculously delicious. Very sweet. It almost feels like very sugary in a way but in the black sesame for some reason for me it tastes almost like chocolate. We're done. We can't eat any more of these because we're getting way too full. We're going somewhere else? We're going to take a break. We're going to take a coffee break now. Coffee. I need coffee, dude. I haven't had coffee yet. And right next to the restaurant here you can see the guy making the pot stickers. They look so delicious. He just keeps turning it around turning it around then he lets it sit there obviously leaves the steam inside and he opens it keeps turning it turning it until they're done and they're called pot stickers because they stick to the pot obviously. The cafe that we're going to stop by and grab something to drink and to go. I need a coffee right now guys right now I need to wake up. So this is like a modern coffee shop as you can see very nice sleek I love the tables wood, right? And the coffee we got here's a cold brew but it's cold brew with coconut water. Whoa, that's different. Wow. Very tropical. So it's strong but you have like nice coconut water a little sweetness Oh wow no sugar. Good coffee is drank with no sugar. It's a nice break from the food. We need a break we need a break. We're going into the lane houses and to see where local people live for quite a long while already. And there are some signature architecture style over there and we'll introduce over there which is called the Sukumen style and basically it means stone frame gate style so let's see what people doing in there. We're here in the lane houses and one of the signature buildings is the Sukumen style which is right behind us right over here so they use real stone to build the gate the frame sorry and there's a black gate right over there behind the black gate is a little smaller courtyard so some people call it similar to the Hutong style but this has a very significant difference because if you look up there that is the Art Deco style of the decoration yeah I mean look at this it's a huge frame right here nice stone right wow and it's old it's like 150-200 years right this and here we have a huge black gate very tough gate can I see through it nope can't see inside can't go inside well actually the door is open so here's another example of the Sukumen style this one on the top has a very different architecture style decoration style that's the Greek style but on the two columns you will see the Chinese elements on there on the one side it says study well make your family proud on the other side it says make loads of money make your family proud I like that I love this one this one's really beautiful I mean I would never imagine to see this in the middle of these back lanes really cool gate I mean this looks like a very wealthy person right for sure so next up is the hand pulled noodles so basically it's like a spectacle the guy basically he's like a noodle master he flips the noodles in the air but before we stop there we're going to quickly go through a wet market and see a vendor that has lots of vegetables they want to show me you know well this is part of the tour but they want to show you what a wet market in Shanghai looks like alright guys this is the wet market so this is the that we talked about we're going to check it out what's happening inside this is the wet market it's basically an open air supermarket with lots of vendors in the middle you have lots of vegetables cauliflower lettuce potatoes tomatoes so many different things and then over to the right to the far ends you have poultry you have pork chicken right what else and just in front of us behind you guys that's where the seafood is located so this is where local people do grocery shopping every single morning and the reason they call it wet market is because usually they wet the items and the floor is wet as well this is pretty dry this is a pretty clean one this is a dry market alright let's go the market was pretty incredible my favorite part of the market was definitely the seafood aspect I mean the guys there with all the fresh seafood the fish are like jumping in the air that's how fresh it is I mean it literally came from either the ocean or one of the water towns nearby you know river fish salt water and fresh water fish and let's go see these noodles man I love this area French concession sorry I've never heard that concession in the neighborhood I guess that's something here French concession maybe in France they talk about that well this deal back in the days in the 1840s when we had the first opium war with the French later on that we signed a deal with them that's the treaty signed with several foreign countries assigned a different area for them to live to reside alright guys so we're walking closer to where we're going to have the hand-pulled noodle place it's basically also by the Lee family but I'm not related they're from the Penang province they make noodles here this is a family business they're actually open 24-7 the only time they get off work is actually Chinese New Year so they'll be gone they will not be operating here what he's doing right now he's basically prepping the dough warm it up and you see him flipping it several times and swirl it as well which is to align the gluten and see if it's flexible enough and he's prepping it but the actual making noodle part of it it's only taking 7 seconds so here we have the noodles look at this guys just pull it up woah nice sauce in here what you do is you just start slurping mmm it's like a sticky sauce not spicy actually it doesn't have too much flavor so what I'm gonna do I'm gonna get some of this on top ooh that's some chili sauce right there mmm change the game bro the chili sauce it's not too spicy nice very pungent oh my god but these noodles are incredible if I wasn't so full I would probably destroy this but I'm just gonna have like 1 or 2 more bites wow they're super thin noodles very sticky sauce oh my god that was way too spicy it's not so spicy I just had a lot of chili so like it went down the wrong pipe these are some of the best noodles I've ever had in my life for real they're so good mmm this is called tofu bamboo stir fry with a little bit of green pepper and red onions as well but this thing the yellow thing is neither tofu nor bamboo because it's actually not coagulated this is the skin of the soy milk I filled up a little too much of the noodles but it's ok I'm gonna try the skin of the soy milk amazing does have a texture similar to bamboo the bamboo shoot it's like a super basic sauce almost like an oil I don't know if it is oil but it's almost like an oil taste onions green peppers pretty good good pairing and the last thing I'm gonna try on this food tour is xia lang bao xlb which is soup dumplings gotta be careful don't burn your tongue haha now we're walking into the ooh we're walking into the soup dumpling place and we're gonna try some of that this is a different taste with a hint of ginger in there now so this place has xia lang bao but they have ginger inside little different and it also comes with egg so we poured some of the black rice vinegar right here so I'm gonna grab one of these right xia lang bao so you put it in and you have to like oi you gotta like open a hole well the hole is there haha sorry I messed up here so you should never like poke a hole you always gotta open a hole mmm little different with the ginger ginger with the vinegar oh very nice very hot the soup mmm very soft freaking delicious dude but I don't know how many more can I have maybe one more one more they're like very similar to potstickers very similar but at the same time the inside is very different they have you know they're not as cooked on the outside they're very soft just put it in there right best thing to do is open a little hole mmm suck the soup out wow what an epic breakfast food tour Lee thank you so much Untour food tours has the best breakfast food tour in Shanghai for sure this was so amazing lots of hidden gems I didn't even know this area existed I mean obviously the French concession but this is so different lots of delicious things my favorite thing has to be the damn pancake man the pancake mmm so good so rich in flavor sweet spicy and I really love the xiaolongbaos really good I think the noodles the last thing we had before this that was probably my favorite noodles of all time super fresh nice flavor not spicy at all I had to add some spice there and yeah man epic how about you what was your favorite well my favorite is still the pancake actually the jianbing the jianbing all time favorite that's the best well guys next time you come to Shanghai definitely go to Untour food tours they have many different food tours around the city this one specifically is called Breakfast Street Street Eat Breakfast really delicious like wow I was blown away oh and the potstickers dude the potstickers are so good too there's just too many things too many things and yeah guys if you love this video please give me a thumbs up leave me a comment below and subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content I'll see you in the next child food adventure in Shanghai, China peace