Shanghai cuisine (上海菜), also known as Hu cai (滬菜, pinyin: hù cài) is a style of Chinese cuisine, and is a popular and celebrated cuisine among the Chinese in China.
The use of sugar is common in Shanghainese cuisine and, especially when used in combination with soy sauce, effuses foods and sauces with a taste that is not so much sweet but rather savory. Non-natives tend to have difficulty identifying this usage of sugar and are often surprised when told of the "secret ingredient." The most notable dish of this type of cooking is "sweet and sour spare ribs" ("tangcu xiaopai" in Shanghainese).
Breakfast is commonly bought from corner stalls which sells pork buns, for the best xiaolongbao (small steamer bun). These stalls also sell other types of buns, such as Shengjian mantou (生煎饅頭, literally "fried bun") and Guo Tie (fried jiaozi), all eaten dipped in black vinegar.
A typical breakfast combination is youtiao, a dough-like food that is deep fried in oil until crisp and is eaten in all parts of China, wrapped in thick pancake, accompanied by soy milk.
One of the local favourites in Shanghai is Shanghai crispy chicken[citation needed]. Crispy chicken is made by first boiling the body of a chicken until its flesh is tender, then roasting it for long periods of time or until the skin goes dry and crispy.
Due to the rapid growth of Shanghai and its development into one of the foremost East Asian cities as a center of both finance and contemporary culture, the future of Shanghai cuisine looks very promising[citation needed].
Unlike Cantonese or Mandarin cuisine, Shanghainese restaurant menus will sometimes have a dessert section