Dish of the Day: Tea eggs @ Family Mart

Every few days our team will scour Shanghai’s dining scene for scrumptious dishes that’ll fill your belly without emptying your savings. Not to discriminate, we’ll search everywhere from bicycle carts to chic venues with twenty-course tasting menus, knowing that any spot could have the next Dish of the Day.
If you’ve spent even a moment in Shanghai, you’ve encountered tea eggs ((茶叶蛋, cháyè dàn) pre-boiled eggs that are cracked and re-boiled in tea and spices, usually a mixture of ground cinnamon, star anise, fennel seeds, and cloves. These coffee-colored orbs are the most ubiquitous eats in town, sold everywhere from street stalls to small dives like Zhouli Laoya Fensi, to our go-to, Family Mart.
At our favorite green, white, and blue convenience store, you see them bobbing about in what look like assorted vats of swamp murk. The eggs themselves don’t look much better, sort of like regular eggs with gangrene. Don’t be deterred, their flavor evokes richer boiled eggs infused with smoked duck. This Easter, we definitely recommend ditching the “holiday priced” milk chocolate in tinfoil and picking up one of these instead. One egg runs you about 2RMB.
Last time on Dish of the Day: Pork mo sandwich @ Ms. Ji’s Fang Xin Rou Jia Mo
See a complete list of our Dish of the Day series here.
Have a recommendation for Dish of the Day? Let Shanghaiist’s Food Editor know at [email protected]!
[Image via osullivansabroad]

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