Jia Jia Tang Bao — Restaurant in Shanghai

The best, most authentic, and a very local-serving soup dumpling house. No frills here, just the best xiao lo bao you'll find in Shanghai. Thin dough that holds together perfectly, savory and juicy fillings. Very hot when they come out! You're in luck if you're there during hairy crab season. (Might be a wait out the door...but it's worth it! -and very possible to show up with no wait at all).

Easy to find on Huánghé Road, the exterior is simply a plain white facade with large red Chinese characters over the door (no English... but they're distinctive for their simplicity, and also across the street from Yang's Dumpling's hot pink awning, which is signed in both Mandarin and English, and another great spot).

Place your order up front at the oh-so-tiny counter/register, grab your receipt (be sure to keep it visible on the table), and share a table with whomever has room -- or drag some extra stools over and make a four person table an eight+, as frequently happens.

At the time of writing 70 RBM ($10.50 US) gets two steamers full up with 12 xiao lo bao each... so 24 of the best soup dumplings you'll have for about $0.40 per.

(Go ahead and "waste" your money at Din Tai Fung... they're $10.50 US for just 10 dumplings... don't get me wrong, they're delicious, but Jia Jia Tang Bao is better, and less than half the price).

*A number of photos shared here aren't actually this restaurant, including he first few. Jia Jia Tang Bao is just a plain white interior, simple wood tables (no lazy Susan's), and a small white counter to order at (more like what westerners might expect to be a hostess stand...but it's not). There are no fancy food displays where you order, just a white board with red tags hanging (written in Mandarin) displaying what is available that day. There's a cramped little prep kitchen where you can pier inside and watch the staff roll and fill dumplings. The steamers are behind a wall behind the order counter, which steams up a window to the left of the door when looking...

One thing I hunted down in Shanghai was the famed delicacy, the Xiao Long Bao, or steamed soup dumplings. On Huanghe Street off Nanjing Lu is a well recommended Jia Jia Tang Bao. There is no fanfare about the place, except the appearance of a long line of people outside a small door, an if you don’t read Chinese, the place is easy to miss. The staff speaks almost no English and have no English menus outside of the daily menu hung at the counter in Mandarin, but you can actually ask them for one and they’ll put one up from below the counter. Pick the meat and crab dumplings. A small kitchen staff near the entrance prepares the dumplings by hand which adds to the wait time. I had thought the line outside was to order and pick up the dumplings, but after placing the order, you still have to wait for your order to be made and delivered! I spent almost 2 hours throughout, including the wait time. If you want to skip the lines, or at least ensure a shorter one, come early, very very early. 8am! After that, there would constantly be a line. The shop itself is unassuming. Nothing fancy, almost make shift, in a small tight confined space. Was the Xiao Long Bao worth the wait? You bet it was. The crab Xiao Long Bao is the delicacy here. Filled with rich crab roe in a huge-sized dumpling, it is incredibly delicious and filling! I had no idea that the dumplings is going to be this huge and did the crazy thing and ordered 2 baskets. When the dished arrived, the crab dumplings and the pork meat dumplings totalled 16 huge pieces. After finishing the entire dish, which took quite a bit of effort (again, it’s huge!) I had trouble eating again until later in the evening. Usually, a place like this that’s been listed and recommended by anyone and everyone, the reality may well disappoint. But Jia Jia Tang Bao is definitely a must try. I would brave the line and...

As noted elsewhere, this eatery is almost always full, with a long queue outside. It would seem the morning (9.00 a.m. or before) would be your best bet for shorter queue times, for it was around that time that I started queuing up.

While many of us are used to the sequence of "sit down (at vacant table), place your order with the waiter", at Jia Jia Tangbao, it goes like this:-

Queue up (outside) By the time you reach the front of the queue, you'll be at the cashier's counter Place your order with the cashier and pay. Even at this stage you don't have a seat at a table yet. Don't worry, continue to wait for someone to leave - your order will likely take another 15-20 minutes to arrive!

The 3 of us ordered only one steamer tray of pork xiaolongbao (costing CNY15), and the cashier (presumably thinking this was "too little") warned us that we wouldn't be able to subsequently add to our order. No problem. After all, we had only come from Yang's Fried Dumplings across the street!

After paying, the cashier wrote a number on our receipt. Every now and then the waiter delivering food would call out a number, and if that's the number on your receipt, let him know, for that's your order he is bringing.

The xiaolongbao themselves were juicy and tasty, and we could see why this was such a...