Shanghai wonton vs Guangdong wonton

[Ian_Lee]

Which kind do you like better? Shanghai wonton or Guangdong wonton?

For me, they are two different stuffs. First, the characters of wonton are different in Shanghaiese and Cantonese restaurants. (I don't know if they are the same under the simplified script in Mainland.)

Second, Shanghai wonton is mostly served as a meal while Guangdong wonton as a snack.

Shanghai wonton is much bigger in size. The peel is much thicker with mostly Shanghai Pak Choy, shredded pork, and some slices of hot/salty preserved vegetable inside.

Guangdong wonton is much smaller in size. The peel is thinner with shrimp and shredded pork inside. Most of the time it is served with the silk-like thread noodle.

The soup base of Guangdong wonton is cooked with ingredients like shrimp sperm. It tastes like that Shanghai's consists of mainly MSG.

I heard my mom said that in the old time, wonton hawkers sold it as a midnight snack in Guangzhou. The wonton was not wrapped until it was ordered.

[Quest]

上海锅贴？

[Ian_Lee]

Quest:

锅贴 and wonton are different food with different shape.

锅贴 is pan-fried while wonton is served in soup.

When I was a kid, I loved to watch how they prepared 锅贴 (During that time, some Shanghai restaurant had open kitchens on the front where they prepared 锅贴, Chicken/Duck blood soup and oily bean curd vermicelli soup..etc while the other dishes prepared in the closed kitchen on the rear)

They pan-fried the 锅贴 in a big flat metal pan. Everytime 60 or more 锅贴 were cooked. The chef liked to rotate the huge wooden lid cover and periodically added water onto the pan. It looked like an art to a kid.

[skylee]

鍋貼 is pan fried 餃子 (yummy). I think Ian meant 餛飩 vs 雲吞.

"Shanghai wonton is mostly served as a meal while Guangdong wonton as a snack."

"It tastes like that Shanghai's consists of mainly MSG."

I think these are just the impressions Ian has. I think the amount of MSG really depends on the restaurant. Personally I prefer Shanghai wonton. Actually I think I don't like the Canton version (I always choose 水餃 instead of wonton).

[aline]

Shanghai wonton? Is that hundun?I'm getting confused.

Anyway, the wonton i've eaten since I was a kid are smaller in size and the way they 'wrap' it is different from the hundun or shuijiao in Shanghai. I'm hakka so maybe it's Guangdong wonton that I've been eating.

Shanghai or Guangdong style... I like both.

[Gary Soup]

Shanghainese distinguish between "xiao huntun" and "da huntun". The small wontons are wrapped very causally, like crumpling a piece of paper in your fist and are typically eaten as a snack with other "xiao chi." The "big" wontons are carefully wrapped in a characteristic shape resembling a large tortellini, contain a variety of incredients, and are more likely to be served as a light meal by themselves.

[Gary Soup]

They pan-fried the 锅贴 in a big flat metal pan. Everytime 60 or more 锅贴 were cooked. The chef liked to rotate the huge wooden lid cover and periodically added water onto the pan. It looked like an art to a kid.

It sounds like you are talking about shengjian bao, which Shanghainese often refer to as guo tie. They are round dome-shaped dumplings, typically studded with chives on the top, not crescent-shaped like their northern cousins. I've seen the preparation you are describing, using an even larger pot than the one in the picture below. There was a famous place on Xizang Lu near Nanjing Lu where there was always a line in front for takeaway shengjian bao.

[bhchao]

I like Shanghai wonton. Guangdong wonton is not one of my favorites.

It sounds like you are talking about shengjian bao, which Shanghainese often refer to as guo tie.

I thought shengjian bao and guo tie are two different items. Shengjian bao is round and dome-shaped like you described, whereas guo tie is narrower and looks like this

That is the guo tie I have eaten before. Personally I prefer shengjian bao over guo tie.

[Gary Soup]

I thought shengjian bao and guo tie are two different items. Shengjian bao is round and dome-shaped like you described, whereas guo tie is narrower and looks like this

They are different to most people. But people in Shanghai often refer to shegjian bao as "pot stickers" and the storefront vendors that Ian Lee described usually are serving up shengjian bao. The two critters are cooked by a very similar process (frying and steaming at the same time) and have similar filling, though the wrapper and shapes are different.

We recently went to a Shanghainese place in San Francisco and unintentionally ended up with both pot stickers and shengjian bao because in the confusion I ordered "shengjian bao" and my sister-in-law, born and raised in Shanghai, absent-mindedly ordered "guo tie" thinking of the same thing.