Former food haven in Shanghai blossoms once more

Online food delivery services have also reported that takeaway orders for food featured in the TV drama have been soaring. For example, online takeaway orders of rice soup, a typical Shanghai homemade dish that involves soaking leftover rice in a seafood broth, spiked 1.5 times on Meituan.

Other Shanghai classics like pork chops and rice cakes, have also been massively popular, with food delivery orders for them soaring 300 percent on Meituan.

But the show has stirred more than just appetites of the public. For Huang Jiani, the show reminded her of the days when people could still set off firecrackers in downtown during the Spring Festival holiday period.

"Business people believed that larger and louder firecrackers would bring greater fortunes in the new year. On the eve of the Spring Festival, restaurant managers would set off boxes of firecrackers larger than TV sets in the middle of the street. The deafening sounds of the firecrackers going off could be heard till sunrise," Huang recalled.

"The sounds got even louder on the fourth night of the Lunar New Year as this is when people welcome the God of Wealth."

Yang Junzhou contributed to this story.