I’m sad to say that Tianping Lu’s street food mecca which I have written about before in loving tones—one of the last remaining downtown areas with a whole strip of fresh street food vendors—is now going under the bulldozer, and it's still to be seen how many of these vendors will survive the final construction phase of the street.

Arriving home in Shanghai from a long trip in the States, I was up early and bright-eyed today (very unusual for me) for a run down to Tianping for jianbing and shaobing. The street has been under construction for at least six months and now the sidewalks are getting their finishing touches, with the stone curbs being put in place today, and the lower layer of sidewalk being evened-out.

But it looks like just as the street is getting sprucing up, the large group of morning food vendors are getting pushed out. Today there were only a few people out and they were setting up their tables in a construction area which looks like a very temporary arrangement. I fear that once the new sidewalk gets poured, the vendors may be disappearing. I can only hope that at least two or three will remain so I can still get my morning bites of those scrumptious sesame seed shaobing and hot egg and youtiao jianbing, and more importantly, the neighborhood can retain its vital traditional local food community.

One good bit of news however: we are not losing our Tianping Lu wet market! In fact the warehouse-style market inside alley 246 Tianping Lu has been renovated (poorly, but adequately with uneven concrete flooring and electrical extension cords pulled across the ground). This market is now full to bursting with local people and the offerings are fresh and varied: lots of veggies, pork, chicken and fish, good free-range eggs and a selection of tofu and soy products. Today, I bought some big pork bones, bamboo shoots, qing cai, baby potatoes, ginger and mushrooms and I have a big terracotta pot of pork bone soup simmering away as I type this. Hit your local wet market today and see what’s in season—there are plenty of gorgeous local winter veggies to cook.

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