Wang Jia Sha: Bringing Southern Buns to Beijing

I'm willing to admit that Shanghai has one thing on our fair northern capital: buns. Wang Jia Sha has a long history of serving them up down south, and now its first Beijing location is open in Sanlitun Village South.

Their standard xiaolongbao (小笼包) run RMB 22 for five, or you can shell out RMB 38 for five with crab roe. These are excellent, with plentiful unctuous soup and amazingly thin skins. There's also an intriguing goose liver version (RMB 66) that we have yet to try.

While I'll always have a special place in my heart (and stomach) for xiaolongbao, I'm a convert to the wonders of fried shengjian bao (生煎包, RMB 30 for 3). Ours came out looking uncannily perfect, and then managed to taste as good as they looked. The skin, in particular, had a delicate pull to it that made biting into these buns especially pleasurable. If it doesn't creep you out to think of a food product as resembling a baby's bottom, these would hold up to the comparison. If you're creeped out, go ahead and just forget I mentioned that.

I'm a fan of the tea-smoked duck (RMB 68 for a quarter duck), which comes with puffy lotus-leaf buns to stuff the meat into. The pork belly (招牌东坡肉, zhaopai dongpo rou) is glorious, and also comes with buns to mop up the grease.

Wang Jia Sha offers up quality Shanghainese food at fair prices, and its soup dumplings give perennial favorite Din Tai Fung a run for its money.

Wang Jia Sha
S1-30A Sanlitun Village South, 19 Sanlitun Lu, Chaoyang District (6416 3469) 朝阳区三里屯路19好院三里屯Village南区S130A号

Photos: Josh Ong