Shanghai's Best (also known as Shanghai's Best Street Food) is a

Chinese restaurant A Chinese restaurant is a restaurant that serves Chinese cuisine. Most of them are in the Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese style, due to the history of the Overseas Chinese, Chinese diaspora, though other Chinese regional cuisine, regional cuisin ...

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

. The business operates from the

Pine Street Market Pine Street Market is a food hall in the United Carriage and Baggage Transfer Building in the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. The market is curated by Feast Portland co-founder Mike Thelin. The building's reno ...

, as of 2022, and has previously operated from Portland's Alder Street food cart pod and in Salem.

Description

Shanghai's Best specializes in shengjian mantou, a type of fried ''

baozi Baozi (), or simply bao, is a type of yeast-leavened filled bun in various Chinese cuisines. There are many variations in fillings (meat or vegetarian) and preparations, though the buns are most often steaming, steamed. They are a variation of ...

'' (steamed buns). Pan-fried dumplings are made with pork, chicken,

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

, or

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...

fillings. The vegetarian variety has

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

chives Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae. A perennial plant, ''A. schoenoprasum'' is widespread in nature across much of Eurasia and North America. It is the only spe ...

, and

mung bean The mung bean or green gram (''Vigna radiata'') is a plant species in the legume family.Brief Introduction of Mung Bean. Vigna Radiata Extract Green Mung Bean Extract Powder Phaseolus aureus Roxb Vigna radiata L R Wilczek. MDidea-Extracts P ...

noodles, and the vegan version has

tofu or bean curd is a food prepared by Coagulation (milk), coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', and ''extra (or super) firm''. It originated in Chin ...

, mushrooms, carrot, and celery. The menu also includes steamed buns with barbecued pork or sweet red bean paste, as well as

mooncake A mooncake () is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節). The festival is primarily about the harvest while a legend connects it to moon watching, and mooncakes are regarded as a delicacy. ...

History

Owner Lin Chen established the business in April 2018. In 2019, the Alder Street food cart pod closed for the development of Block 216 and the Ritz-Carlton, Portland. The Shanghai's Best food cart was initially placed into storage, then relocated to The Yard Food Park in Salem in October 2019. The business began operating from the Cart Blocks in July 2021. Shanghai's Best operates from the

, as of 2022. The restaurant also participated in ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the West Coast of the United States, U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Tho ...

'' annual Dumpling Week in 2022.

Reception

In 2018, Andrea Damewood of the ''

Portland Mercury ''Portland Mercury'' is an alternative bi-weekly newspaper and media company founded in 2000 in Portland, Oregon. It has a sibling publication in Seattle, Washington, called '' The Stranger''. History A prior version of ''The Mercury'' was ...

'' included Shanghai's Best in her overview of "great new choices for your dumpling fix". She wrote: In her 2021 article "Best Thing I Ate This Week: Pan-Fried Pork Dumplings from Shanghai's Best", ''

Portland Monthly ''Portland Monthly'' (also referred to as ''Portland Monthly Magazine'') is a monthly news and general interest magazine which covers food, politics, business, design, events and culture in Portland, Oregon. The magazine was co-founded in 2003 b ...

'' Katherine Chew Hamilton wrote, "The dumplings were a delight—meaty, juicy but not greasy, with crackly bottoms and pillowy tops, and generously sprinkled with sesame seeds." Seiji Nanbu and

Brooke Jackson-Glidden Brooke Jackson-Glidden is a food writer and the editor of '' Eater Portland''. In 2023, she received the Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award from the James Beard Foundation in part for her essay about Either/Or. Jackson-Glidden has been the editor o ...

included Shanghai's Best in ''Eater Portland'''s 2022 overview of "Where to Find Outstanding Chinese Food in Portland and Beyond". The business was also included in ''Eater Portland'''s 2022 overview of "Where to Eat and Drink in Downtown Portland".

References

External links

* {{Restaurants in Portland, Oregon 2018 establishments in Oregon Chinese restaurants in Portland, Oregon Culture of Salem, Oregon Food carts in Portland, Oregon Restaurants established in 2018 Restaurants in Southwest Portland, Oregon

Description

History

Reception

See also

References

External links