Breakfast · Sesame Flatbread

Da Bing (大饼) — Sesame Flatbread

📷 Closely related photo — Photo via Pexels/Unsplash — free for commercial use

It's one quarter of Shanghai's legendary breakfast foursome — and the only one of the four that isn't fried, steamed, or wrapped in rice.

A round or oblong flatbread of leavened dough is brushed with sesame paste or scallion oil, topped with sesame seeds, and baked against the wall of a clay oven until the outside blisters and browns. It's usually wrapped around a stick of fried dough (youtiao) and eaten on the walk to work.

Why it's made this way: Da bing belongs to Shanghai's "four great morning treasures" alongside youtiao, soy milk, and rice rolls — a cheap, fast breakfast combo that took hold in the early 20th century.