Guang Ming Cun Restaurant — Restaurant in Shanghai

It’s that time of the year again when everyone is giving and receiving mooncakes, either in its physical form or in the form of coupons from renowned bakeries. But for the uninitiated, mooncakes in Shanghai is next level! I got hooked while I was living in Shanghai and decided I need to relish the taste of Shanghainese mooncakes again.

First of all, unlike the usual red bean or mung bean paste with salted egg yolks and/or nuts and melon seeds, your typical fare from Cantonese mooncakes, Shanghainese mooncakes have pork meat fillings! The pastry is made with lard and its layered like puff pastry and baked in an oven. So you get flaky crust and meat with juice overflowing in each bite.

Guang Ming Cun’s mooncake must be the most famous amongst all the Shanghainese mooncake outlets. The queues for its mooncakes are legendary. I have read accounts on social media about how lobgbhh the customer queued, anything from 20 minutes up to 2 hours, even before Nid Autumn Festival. And when it’s Mid Autumn Festival, anecdotal quotes say 4 to 8 hours. And lots of scalpers operate outside the restaurants.

What is so different between their and the other brands? The main difference is GuangMing Cun does not bake their in an oven but toast theirs on both sides on a hot plate. Apparently this gets you flakiness on all sides instead of just the top and sides of your bake them.

And yet there is a very simple hack. On E Le Ma food delivery platform, you can choose to buy from any of the three Guang Ming Cun outlets and have it delivered to you for a fee. The normal cost of a box of 10 mooncakes if you queue is RMB60. And you are limited to 4 boxes. In E-Le Ma, you can buy as many as you wish and stipulate the desired delivery address and timing but the cost is RMB88 per box and there is a small delivery fee.

No brainer if you ask me whether to queue for 4 hours or pay extra RMB18 per box. And for newcomers to the platform, you get RMB30 off for your first purchase over RMB200.

Bought one box for tasting on day one when I arrived Shanghai and another three boxes for bring back to Singapore on the day I left. Keeps for a month if you put in freezer. Just reheat using air fryer at 180 C for 5-6 mins.

Or if you managed to snag a table for dinner or lunch, there is also no need to queue. Just order the mooncakes as you place your lunch or dinner orders after you are seated. They will be packed and ready to go when you have finished dinner. But the same limits apply.

Must try if you are in Shanghai....

i got recommended by my local friend that the "meat mooncake" here is a definitely MUST try item in Shanghai. when i passed by at 4-ish, there was a terrible long queue so i gave it in. then i came back like 15-to-6, there were only 4 people in the line so i gave it a try. the locals told me that the last batch was gonna come out soon and only 50pcs to buy, but she was sure that both herself and i could get one. after 5mins wait, the "mooncake" finally came out. come on, it's not any mooncake, but a pastry with a ball of pork inside. just RMB6 for one. the people in front of me they bought a lot, half a dozen at least! i got only 1 and was able to eat immediately. it's nice indeed, hot inside and with lots of juice (and oil). it's actually quite stuffing. soon after i took the pictures, all 50pcs were gone (they must think i'm weird to buy only 1). i'd say Yes, good to try, but think about it carefully when it needs to queue and when you couldn't guarantee yourself to have (even) 1. think i was...

This was recommended by smart shanghai website and it's average. The Shanghai duck is cold without depth of flavor. The plate is very small with about 8 pieces of duck meat skin bones. The roasted duck is not better. The plate of cold duck skin ,10 pieces and handful size plate of duck stir fry with bean sprouts isn't appetizing. The steamed dumplings were filled with minced greasy pork and yellow oily soup. The tea was made from what looked like grass fronds and was...