Middle Street is similar to Taiyuan Street, except even more crowded. There are massive shopping malls as far as the eye can see, and the air is filled with deafening music blaring from cheap speakers outside shops. Shenyang has a population of over 7 million people, and some days it feels like at least half of them are here.

 

Like Taiyuan Street, you can find just about everything you could possibly want to buy here, as long as you’re willing to brave the crowds. 

 

Notable: Middle Street is home to a famous dumpling restaurant called Laobian Dumplings (老边饺子馆, laobian jiaozi guan). Laobian is now a nationwide chain, but this Shenyang location is supposedly the original. The place gets mixed reviews. The dumplings are good, but overpriced.  Laobian does feature “tea shooters,” which are servers accurately pouring tea from long distances using an extra long spouted teapot. If you have a large enough group for a private room and you can understand Chinese (or have a translator), the restaurant staff will give you a  presentation about the history of the restaurant, as well as a demonstration of traditional "lucky dumplings."

Technically, Furniture City is three or four very large buildings filled with every type of home furnishing under the sun. However, the neighborhood, which is constantly bustling with people, is actually surrounded by dozens of smaller shops specializing in home furnishings as well. Here you can find just about anything you need to decorate your abode…sofas, chairs, doors, woodwork, lighting, flooring, artwork, fake flowers... you name it - they got it.