The Xintiandi branch is the closest to Yu Gardens of the current 9 Shanghai branches. Not very close, but two stations apart on the No. 10 Metro line. Was it on the second floor with a Crystal Jade outlet next to it?
Chestnut XLB?!? Ok iām SO gonna skip lunch to make sure i can eat Every. Thing.
Iāll bring your notes here with me since weāre all kinda clueless as to what the best dishes are to try!
The dessert xlb are good, but misleadingā itās a sweet paste in a thin dumpling wrapper, not anything soupy. Buns are the better way to go if they have themļ¼enjoy!
That sounds right. It was pretty empty, all tourists but excellent food, way better than branches In Singapore and San Jose.
Edit: the location I went to is closed. Christ, itās been 5 years!
I did a little digging and apparently there was a DTF branch at 168 Fangbang Lu (which would be very close to Yuyuan) for a time.
I went to the Xiantiandi branch when it was the only one in town and it was nearly empty (midday on a weekday). The current branches are mostly in expat-heavy area. The locals are essentially priced out.
Gotcha. I adore anything chestnut so iām good with buns 
Some more vegetarian restaurants in addition to Fu He Hui if you can ditch your meat loving coworkers:
Wu gang tang
Vegetarian street food tour:
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Thank you! We had limited time this trip and unfortunately got back so late one night the only option was room serviceā¦ (good enough but still disappointing with so many options to explore!
Iāll save this info for our next trip in a few months for sure
We went to Din Tai Fung for dinner with a total of eight of us- including a few locals who were in charge of ordering. Hands down the favorite of the meal for everyone was the mushroom dumplings- they had this insane concentrated mushroom flavor and something in there tasted like black truffles!! We had to order a second round of those. Another surprise hit for us was a side dish of raw cucumber with a sesame paste/vinegar sauce of some kind that must have included other ingredients i couldnāt figure out. The tofu and vegetable dumplings were also excellent but the mushroom ones stole the show. We also had a vegetable fried rice- which i never would have ordered- and that was a nice surprise, not too oily and some tasty mushrooms in there too.
Photo here of the first round of dumplings including two of the xlb they ordered, second is of the crazy shrimp soup dumplings that had such a comical shape
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There could well be black truffles in the mushroom dumplings; China produces plenty of them.
The second photo looks like Shanghai style shao mai (a.k.a. siu mai).
