Halal, kosher, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist food in Shanghai: a practical guide

The short answer. Halal food is easy to find in Shanghai if you look for the word 清真 (qīngzhēn, “halal”) on the sign. Shanghai law says only food businesses holding an official halal sign may use it. Most other local food contains pork or cooking wine, often where you cannot see them. For kosher, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist diets there is no shortcut: eat vegetarian, explain your rules with a card in Chinese, and ask about each dish. Our dietary card tool has a ready-made line for each.

Halal (清真)

How do I recognise a halal restaurant?

Look for 清真 in the restaurant’s name or sign. It often appears with Arabic script and a green colour scheme, but the characters are what count.

Shanghai has a law on this: the Regulations on the Administration of Halal Food (上海市清真食品管理条例), passed in 2000 and amended in 2015. Under it:

A business may not make or sell halal food without a halal sign (清真标志牌) issued through the city’s ethnic-affairs authority.
Halal businesses must show “清真” on their signs, product names or packaging. Businesses without the sign may not use the word.
Halal businesses must keep their own vehicles, scales, containers and premises for halal food.

So a 清真 sign in Shanghai is backed by a licence, not just a claim. It is still fair to ask.

What kinds of halal food will I find?

Lanzhou beef noodles (兰州牛肉面, Lánzhōu niúròumiàn): hand-pulled noodles in beef broth, sold all over the city in small 清真 shops.
Xinjiang food (新疆菜): lamb skewers, pilaf (抓饭, zhuāfàn), big plate chicken (大盘鸡, dàpánjī), flatbreads.
Halal versions of local snacks: some halal shops sell beef or lamb dumplings and buns.

Mosques

Shanghai’s mosques include the Xiaotaoyuan Mosque (小桃园清真寺) in the old city and the Huxi and Fuyou Road mosques.

What hides pork or alcohol in Shanghai food?

Dumplings and buns: xiaolongbao, shengjian, wontons and fresh-meat mooncakes are normally pork. The city’s own food guide describes xiaolongbao as minced pork with jellied pork skin, and wonton broth made from pork bones or ham with a little lard.
Crab dishes: crab meat for tofu and noodle dishes is often cooked with lard.
Cooking wine: 料酒 (liàojiǔ) and 黄酒 (huángjiǔ) go into many braises and marinades.
Cold “drunken” and “lees” dishes (醉, 糟): soaked in wine and not cooked again.
Sweet fermented rice (酒酿, jiǔniàng): in a popular dessert soup with rice balls. It contains alcohol.

The halal line on our card asks for no pork, no lard, no pork stock, no ham, and no alcohol including cooking wine, and ends by asking whether the restaurant is 清真.

Kosher

Kosher food in Shanghai is limited and mostly arranged through the Jewish community. In a 2018 interview, the Chabad emissary in Shanghai said the community brought in a shochet (ritual slaughterer) for poultry and imported meat from Uruguay. Contact the community before you travel if you need certified meals.

In ordinary restaurants, the practical choice is vegetarian or fish with scales. Our kosher card line asks for no pork, no shellfish, no fish without scales such as eel, and no mixing of meat and milk. It cannot make a kitchen kosher; it only helps you avoid the obvious problems.

Hindu: no beef

Beef is less common than pork in Shanghai cooking, but watch for:

Beef noodle soups and curry beef soup (咖喱牛肉粉丝汤), the classic partner to shengjian.
Hotpot: some broths are made with beef tallow (牛油, niúyóu). Ask for a clear or tomato broth.

If you are also vegetarian, use the vegetarian line on the card, which names lard, stock and chicken powder as well as meat.

Jain: no meat, eggs or root vegetables

Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of Jains in India avoid root vegetables. This is the hardest diet to keep in Shanghai: garlic, ginger and spring onion are in almost every dish, and potatoes and lotus root are common.

Ask for plain steamed rice and greens stir-fried without garlic or ginger.
Show the Jain line on the card. It lists the root vegetables in Chinese: potato, radish, carrot, onion, garlic, ginger, sweet potato and lotus root.
Expect to explain more than once; this rule is not widely known.

Buddhist vegetarian: no meat and no “five pungents”

Chinese Buddhist vegetarian food (素, sù, or 斋, zhāi) leaves out meat and fish, and also the five pungents (五荤 or 五辛, wǔhūn or wǔxīn): strong-smelling plants of the onion and garlic family. Buddhist texts list them slightly differently, but they cover garlic, spring onion, Chinese chives, onion and Chinese shallot (薤, xiè; in modern speech 藠头, jiàotou). In this sense 荤 means pungent plants, not meat.

Several of Shanghai’s main temples, including the Jade Buddha Temple, Longhua Temple and Jing’an Temple, are working Buddhist temples. Many temples in China serve vegetarian noodles or meals to visitors; ask at the temple, since hours and arrangements change.

Ordinary “vegetarian” dishes in a regular restaurant usually contain garlic and spring onion. The Buddhist line on our card asks for none of the five pungents as well as no meat, no egg, no lard and no meat stock.

No alcohol

If you avoid alcohol for any reason, the risk is in cooking. Skip anything called 醉 (zuì, “drunken”) or 糟 (zāo, “lees”), skip desserts with 酒酿, and ask for no cooking wine: 不要放料酒 (bú yào fàng liàojiǔ). Braised dishes are made in large batches, so the wine usually can’t be left out; choose a stir-fry made to order instead.

Fasting and timing

Restaurants in Shanghai keep long hours, and convenience stores are open late or all night, so eating before dawn or after sunset is possible. Many small noodle shops open early for breakfast.

Cards to show staff

Our dietary card tool builds one card from the lines you need: halal, no pork, no beef, kosher, Buddhist, Jain, no alcohol, plus any allergies. The staff can tap an answer in Chinese and you see it in English. For short, ready-made sentences you can screenshot, see Eating in Shanghai when you can’t read the menu.