Yexie Ruangao: The Soft Steamed Rice Cake of Yexie Town’s Century Tea Counters, Glutinous Rice Flour Wrapped Around Sesame and Bean-Paste Fillings and the Hundred-Year Handsovenir of Songjiang District, Shanghai
叶榭糕坊百年灶，糯米芝麻豆沙甜。Yèxiè gāofāng bǎinián zào, nuòmǐ zhīma dòushā tián – In Yexie the cake houses have kept their stoves a hundred years; glutinous rice, sesame and bean paste hold the sweetness.
叶榭软糕 Yèxiè ruǎngāo Yexie ruangao is the tea-cake trade of 叶榭镇 Yèxiè Zhèn Yexie town in 松江区 Sōngjiāng Qū Songjiang District, Shanghai – the old market town on the district’s south-eastern farm reach where the cake counters keep a sweeter register than the town’s mutton pots: a soft-pressed square of 糯米粉 nuòmǐfěn glutinous rice flour, steamed in batches in its mould, wrapped around 芝麻豆沙馅 zhīma dòushā xiàn sesame and red-bean paste fillings, the crumb landing between cake and confection – 松软清甜 sōngruǎn qīngtián loose-soft and cleanly sweet, sweetened barely past the rice itself (worth confirming the details – which counter holds which frontage and which family’s mould turns over as town trades do, and the specific doors are best confirmed in the town rather than recited). The cake is a 百年茶食 bǎinián cháshí century-old tea food by trade: steamed for the town’s own tea tables, boxed for visiting relatives, and folded into the 手信 shǒuxìn handsovenir bags of every traveller who passes through the town’s market streets. The clientele is the town’s own gifting calendar plus the weekend riders out from the city; the blunt definition: a market town that pressed a hundred years of tea-time into rice flour – the taste of Songjiang eaten one soft square at a time.
Call it honestly: tea-counter money on a gifting clock. Getting there is one door: 叶榭镇 Yèxiè Zhèn Yexie town sits on the district’s south-eastern farm reach, reached by the 金山铁路 Jīnshān Tiělù Jinshan Railway to 叶榭站 Yèxiè zhàn Yexie station or by road ride and district bus from the Songjiang side, the cake counters strung around the town’s old market streets a short ride from the station (worth confirming the details for the station-to-street connection, the town fronts shifting with the street renewals). A single square at the counter prices at pocket change, a boxed dozen at street-snack-to-souvenir money, a tea table with the town’s other tables at casual-neighbourhood money – though exact figures are worth confirming the details on rather than quoting, the counters being small, family-run and repriced by batch and gift season. The crowds run to the calendar: festival weeks and the winter mutton season stack the buying queues and thin the boxes early, weekend middays bring riders up from the railway, weekday mornings belong to the town’s own tea loop, and a weekday mid-morning, when the batches come warm from the steamer and the street belongs to its own, is the eater’s own hour (worth confirming the details for individual counters’ hours, which follow the steaming batches more than any posted sign).
The honest star is the crumb itself, graded batch by batch. What gets oversold is the “lost imperial pastry” framing: guides sell a relic cake where every box carries a century of court favour, and a first-timer may meet an ordinary market-street counter of stacked boxes, tea windows and family shelves – which is not the disappointment but the point. What repays the effort is grading the cake the way the town does: a crumb judged by whether the 糯米粉 nuòmǐfěn holds its softness without turning gluey by the last bite, a filling judged by whether the 豆沙 dòushā bean paste tastes of beans cooked down that week and the 芝麻 zhīma sesame of toasted seed rather than sugar alone, a batch judged by whether it left the steamer that morning. The test costs nothing: buy one square warm from the batch before you buy the boxes, break it and watch whether it parts soft instead of crumbling dry, and buy where the town’s own gift bags queue rather than where the painted signboards hang – a trade that has steamed the same mould for generations grades its counters daily, and the gifting queue is the certificate (worth confirming the details – the counters migrate with the leases, and today’s plainest window may be next season’s remembered one).
The town’s deepest habit is the pairing arithmetic: winter the cake counters share the streets with the mutton pots – a plate of white-cut and a square of 软糕 ruǎngāo closing the same banquet, sweet after savoury the way the town has ordered its tables for generations – a calendar the cake houses plan their steaming around and the mutton trade feeds without either hanging a sign. Time it right – a weekday mid-morning in the cold months, the batch warm – and the counter explains the town better than any plaque: the market street built the cake, and the cake keeps the market street’s manners (worth confirming the details – which counters still steam on site today, the trade thinning toward central production as the gift boxes grow).
The rest of this Songjiang list keeps other tables: the thousand-year steam of 松江鲈鱼 Sōngjiāng lúyú Songjiang perch rises by 秀野桥 Xiùyě Qiáo Xiuye Bridge in the old creek belt, the white-cut winter mutton of 张泽羊肉 Zhāngzé yángròu Zhangze mutton simmers in this same town’s 张泽 Zhāngzé Zhangze belt, the soup-bursting baskets of 泗泾小笼 Sìjīng xiǎolóng Sijing xiaolong steam in the old town of 泗泾 Sìjīng Sijing to the north, and the orchid-scented spring shoots of 佘山兰笋 Shéshān lánsǔn Sheshan lanbamboo rise in the hill’s bamboo groves – one district, four more tables, all inside 松江区 Sōngjiāng Qū Songjiang District; and when the tea-counter morning needs a bed in the town or a broader route, the stay-and-street notes for the district pick up where the soft squares leave off.
Words and Names
What the Locals Know
flowcloud would say that the 叶榭软糕 Yèxiè ruǎngāo is the century tea cake and the soft handsovenir of Songjiang District, Shanghai – a 百年茶食 bǎinián cháshí discipline where the 糯米粉 nuòmǐfěn glutinous crumb answers the 芝麻豆沙馅 zhīma dòushā xiàn sesame and bean-paste fillings and the 松软清甜 sōngruǎn qīngtián loose-soft sweetness of 叶榭镇 Yèxiè Zhèn Yexie town’s market streets – and that the honest move is to buy one square warm from the batch, break it before you buy the boxes, and let the gifting queue cast the vote, because the town steamed its manners into rice flour and the mould keeps them there. All checked October 2026.
Where to find it: 松江区 Sōngjiāng Qū Songjiang District, Shanghai – the tea-cake belt of 叶榭镇 Yèxiè Zhèn Yexie town, where the 百年茶食 bǎinián cháshí counters keep the 糯米粉 nuòmǐfěn glutinous squares filled with 芝麻豆沙馅 zhīma dòushā xiàn sesame and red-bean paste, reached by the 金山铁路 Jīnshān Tiělù Jinshan Railway to 叶榭站 Yèxiè zhàn Yexie station or by road ride from the Songjiang side (worth confirming the details for the connecting services and which counter holds which frontage today, town doors turning over as town trades do), where the counters keep the gifting clock – festival weeks and the mutton season the stacked queues, weekend middays the railway riders, weekday mid-morning the eater’s own; pocket-change to souvenir-box money, so call it worth confirming the details rather than a fixed number, and let the local gift-bag queue cast the vote. Yexie ruangao is the soft steamed rice cake of Yexie town’s century tea counters, glutinous rice flour wrapped around sesame and bean-paste fillings and the hundred-year handsovenir of Songjiang District, Shanghai – the taste of 松江区 Sōngjiāng Qū Songjiang District eaten one soft square at a time. All checked October 2026.