Avital and I just had a three day layover in Shanghai on our way to Sri Lanka and it was delicious!

Most of our itinerary involved walking from one restaurant to another and getting a sense of the city along the way. This was my first trip to Shanghai (and mainland China) and I was very impressed. The city was very clean and walkable, the public transit was great, and it was easy to get around without knowing any Mandarin (though Avital knew a bunch and that helped).

We stayed in a great AirBnB on Nanjing West Road, near the French Concession - it made it easy to walk everywhere. As soon as we arrived, we went out for Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings). They were pretty tasty, though with thicker dough than I prefer.

We had a bunch of dumplings over the course of the week and I’m a little embarrassed to say my favorite were at a branch of Din Tai Fung (the awesome Taiwanese chain I’ve mentioned before).

We’ve had a lot of great dishes over the past few days. Here are some highlights:

Jian Bing - crepe with egg, crunch, and spicy sauce made on the street

Tea Tree Mushroom Dry Pot at a Hunan restaurant - amazingly savory and spicy

Noodles with a spicy peanut sauce

Sour and Spicy Noodle Soup - definitely my favorite noodle dish of the trip

Tasty Uighur (north-west) dishes including the delicious and amusingly named Detonation Mutton

On the non-food front, we saw a lot of the French Concession and Bund on foot. I was impressed by how many parks and green spaces there were.

We also dropped by the Urban Planning Museum where they had a huge model of the city.

Monday we flew to Sri Lanka, where we’ll be for just over a week. This was a short introduction to mainland China but I really liked it and would definitely return.

Expect more blog posts soon!