Guangmingcun is an established restaurant on Huaihai Road, described as around 70 years old. It is known for Shanghainese cooked meats and freshly baked pork mooncakes, with frequent queues.
What each floor offers
- Ground-floor takeaway
- Cooked meats, rice cakes and freshly baked pork mooncakes for takeaway, often with a queue.
- Second-floor dim sum
- Traditional snacks, dim sum and simple cooked dishes at relatively accessible prices.
- Third and fourth floors
- A more formal setting for full Shanghainese dishes, suited to a family meal or a longer visit.
What to order
- Fresh-meat mooncake
- Freshly baked flaky pastry with a hot, juicy, slightly sweet pork filling.
- House soy-sauce duck
- Firm, well-seasoned duck in a sweet-savoury soy sauce, a classic cooked dish.
- Sizzling shredded eel
- Tender eel with black-pepper sauce finished with hot oil, recommended with rice.
- Old-Shanghai smoked fish
- Crisp outside and tender inside, coated in a sweet-sour sauce with a light smoky note.
- Sautéed clover
- Fresh clover lifted with baijiu, providing a lighter vegetable dish.
- Small yellow croaker with seaweed
- Crisp fried small yellow croaker with seaweed; it has few bones but can be oily when freshly fried.
Listed opening hours
- Takeaway and dim sum
- Ground-floor takeaway 09:00–18:00; second-floor dim sum 09:30–21:00.
- Dining and night stall
- Dining 11:00–14:00 and 17:00–21:00. We recommend a Friday-to-Sunday night stall at the Huaihai Middle Road branch, 20:00–23:00. Confirm current arrangements.
Before joining the queue
- Choose the right queue
- Popular items may sell out, so go earlier. For a full cooked meal, take a queue number on the third floor, where the selection is broader and the cooking more consistent than on the snack floor.
- Sweetness and timing
- The cooking can be relatively sweet. Try a smaller portion first, and arrive near the 11:00 or 17:00 opening to reduce waiting.