There’s an App Add-On For That: Get a Mouthful of Shanghai’s Soup Dumplings

Even though Shanghai is now a vast, sprawling metropolis, there are still ample opportunities to fill your face with traditional local snacks and street food. But such tiny taste treats are not on every street corner, so a new-comer to the city might appreciate some hi-tech help. And now the free travel app Rama for iPhone has a paid add-on – dubbed a “tour” – that’ll guide your taste buds towards Shanghai’s finest soup dumplings, called xiao long bao.

The 99 cent tour, available as an in-app purchase within the Rama app, will explain some of the variations of soup dumplings available – the crab meat ones (pictured below) I’ve not yet tried, and are now maiking me feel hungry – and where to find them:

The app is geared towards English-speaking travelers, and comes with the necessary Chinese text to help you order what you fancy.

This Shanghai soup dumpling tour was devised and created by a foreign expat in the city, Fiona Reilley, who I’d say has the right approach to exploring a new city: being led by your eyes and tummy to sample its street food. Fiona has been in China for four years now, and says in her blog that she must’ve eaten “my body weight in xiao long bao.”

One tip I’d add is that these tasty morsels do indeed contain a scorching and oily mouthful of soupy broth – in addition to its meat – inside the dumpling skin, so the best way to eat it is by first nipping a small hole its base so as to drink the broth. Only when that’s finished do you dare to take a proper bite of it.

To find the xiao long bao tour, get the free Rama app from iTunes and then get the 99 cent add-on as an in-app purchase. An iPad-optimized version is in the works, as is one for Android.

Read more about it on Fiona Reilley’s food-oriented blog, Life on Nanchang Lu.