The Four Heavenly Kings (Shanghai Breakfast)

The "Four Heavenly Kings" is Shanghai's collective name for four traditional breakfast items: dabing (a baked savoury-or-sweet flatbread), youtiao (a fried dough stick), doujiang (soy milk, sweet or savoury) and cifan (a sticky-rice roll wrapping youtiao)—the name borrowed from the guardian kings of Buddhist lore.

The grouping grew out of Shanghai's immigrant food culture from the Republican era onward, with the term "Four Heavenly Kings" taking firm shape in the 1980s—a shared memory of lane-side mornings for generations of Shanghainese.

The classic combination is a youtiao folded inside a dabing with a bowl of sweet or savoury soy milk; the cifan is squeezed tight around a youtiao into a roll to eat on the go.

Ordinary as they seem, the four are judged by a flaky dabing, a light crisp youtiao, freshly ground soy milk and soft sticky cifan—the authentic flavour of a street-corner breakfast.