Old Shanghai Breakfast Tour

This half-day tour is a chance to discover another side to Shanghai, away from the skyscrapers and trappings of modern life. Walking through the streets and lanes of one of the city’s oldest communities takes into the heart of a hidden neighborhood, a tangle of sights, sounds and smells, not to mention tastes. You’ll be guided through the streets by a local English-speaking guide, beginning at a noodle shop for the most important meal of the day. Attached to a temple, this noodle shop creates vegetarian dishes for the monks and is an important cultural hub.

From here you continue on your gastronomic journey to watch street foods being freshly prepared for you, including fried beef pancakes, jianbing (savory Chinese crepes), and youtiao (Chinese donut sticks). You’ll then take a seat to enjoy some soy milk or homemade herbal alcohol as you watch Shanghai’s famous potstickers and dumplings being fried in giant pans. After sampling some of these delicious delicacies you’ll head to a traditional wet market where you can join the locals haggling for meat and seafood before ending your tour at a local temple. Throughout the morning your guide will bring to life the cultural and historic riches of the community, and as you feast on a variety of flavors you’ll also gain an insight into the lives of the inhabitants of this ancient neighborhood.