Fair Food Prices

Food culture

Shanghai has its own dedicated breakfast culture, built around the "si da jin gang" ("four heavenly kings") — soy milk, fried dough sticks, sesame flatbread, and glutinous rice rolls sold from stalls tucked into old laneways from roughly 6 to 9 in the morning, after which most close before lunch. Locals eat this standing up or on the move rather than sitting down, treating it as a completely separate ritual from lunch and dinner rather than a smaller version of either. Price swings hardest around dishes tied to scarcity or occasion rather than skill: hairy crab is only in season for a few months a year and its cost tracks that week's market, while a soup dumpling can be a cheap streetside snack at one shop or, at an established specialist, a sit-down meal built around nothing else.