Ye Shanghai - 夜上海

Sorry about the delay again... had a midterm on Friday and a paper due Monday. And this is a long post. This is an interesting place called 夜上海 (Ye Shanghai), also in the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel. It's a pretty swanky Shanghainese place, with one catch: they have a Western-style pastry chef. You'll see the results...


cucumber with (lots of) garlic cucumber with (lots of) garlic


mushroom in tofu skin mushroom in tofu skin


seafood soup seafood soup


plain stir fried baby shrimp plain stir fried baby shrimp Gonna take this one step at a time... there's a lot of pics. We had most of the standard Shanghainese cold apps; I didn't bother posting them all. The cucumber was really really garlicky (ie. good). The tofu skin with mushroom is a very typical dish that's well-executed here. Hot and crisp tofu. The seafood soup was like a Chinese bouillabaisse. Crab, fish, clams, shrimp, and a very tasty broth. Just add rouille! The shrimp as you can see were tiny and very good.


peking duck peking duck


crab stuffing with sesame pastry buns crab stuffing with sesame pastry buns


fried fish with scallions and soy sauce fried fish with scallions and soy sauce


stemed pork dumplings steamed pork dumplings Peking duck was of the skin-only variety and delicious. Very crispy with well-made pancakes. The crab stuffing was also great... usually those buns are served with Chinese donut. Fried fish was so so. Xiao long bao was great, but still couldn't match up to Crystal Jade.


sugar buns sugar buns


ginger panna cotta ginger panna cotta


tofu skin pastry with mango tofu skin pastry with mango


rice pudding custard rice pudding custard


sago semifreddo with berries sago semifreddo with berries


sesame creme brulee sesame creme brulee


tofu cheesecake tofu cheesecake So as you can probably guess by now, the theme is Western desserts using Chinese ingredients. VERY unique. Some were hits and some were misses... Buns were good but nothing special. Ginger panna cotta had a little too much bite for me, but I don't really like the taste of ginger in desserts. The mango thing was delicious - very interesting use of tofu skin as a sort of phyllo/millefeuille pastyr. The custard was sort of like a creme caramel - very solid. The semifreddo (dunno what to call it) was also delicious. Creamy and fulfilling. Sesame creme brulee was so so, but a lot of other people loved it. Again, I don't like sesame all that much. Tofu cheesecake was alright - very light, but not as good as some other normal cheesecakes I've had. I don't know if you'll be able to find this kind of stuff anywhere else. It's definitely an interesting concept.