Every Friday, around 11am, Shanghai's local Muslim population gather around the Hu Xi Mosque on Changde Lu and set up a row of tents, stalls, tables and chairs for tourists and locals to come dine on traditional Hui and Uyghur cuisine.

While the dishes, which include rice pilaf with lamb, samsa (baked bread pocket stuffed with lamb), carrot dumplings, lamb skewers and langfen (clear broad noodles with spicy sauce and cucumber slices), are all a bit marked up for tourists, the food is still cheap, ranging from RMB 2 - RMB 15.

The Muslim Market is a Shanghai gem, a traditional cultural enclave amidst the concrete and steel of an emerging metropolis, and is not to be missed.