My favorite scallion pancake (葱油饼 congyoubing) in all of Shanghai
Just around the corner from my favorite wonton shop, back onto Shouning Road (寿宁路), was my favorite scallion pancake. Now, I haven’t had SO many scallion pancakes in Shanghai in order to compare, but this one always satisfied. And was just down the block from the Fraser serviced apartment I was staying in.
You can see the production line from foreground to background. First is rolling and filling: I can’t really identify that yellow paste that’s spread on (and is dripping from the sides of the bucket in front), but that pink stuff I believe is pork fat! Behind this prep area is the griddle, and behind the griddle is a circular oven-type thing where the finished scallion pancakes sit on top, in a ring surrounding an opening to the fire.
You pay by scanning their QR code, and luckily for me, they also took cash. When I just moved to Shanghai, I didn’t have my bank account set up, so I could only pay by cash.
One of these 老式葱油饼 “old-fashioned scallion pancakes” was 4 RMB. Yes, they were griddled in a lot of oil, but somehow it never turned out to be overly greasy. Just a good deal of crunch and very savory inside.
Not bready as some scallion pancakes can be, these have an assertive texture but with nice layers inside.
They also made some other things to order. Once I tried a 葱花草鸡蛋饼, or scallion and egg pancake. You can see the empty egg shells in the bucket on the ground, and the much wider pancake on the griddle. (In this picture their setup is actually switched from the picture earlier: their prep area is on the left, the circular oven in the middle, and the griddle on the right.)
This 饼 bing actually folded up.
There’s a bit of protein in there from the egg, and I see some chili sauce in there too. I don’t remember ordering this more than once though. The scallion pancakes were the way to go!
