this post is filed under Cuisine - Chinese, Location - Hong Kong

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

mushroom in tofu skin

seafood soup

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

crab stuffing with sesame pastry buns

fried fish with scallions and soy sauce

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

ginger panna cotta

tofu skin pastry with mango

rice pudding custard

sago semifreddo with berries

sesame creme brulee

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.

Comments

I am invited to your restaurant in Shanghai ( Dec. 1st) and looking forward to your dishes
I am from Germany

posted by Biechl Helmut on November 23, 2005 11:24 AM

I was in Shanghai couple years ago and stumble into Ye Shanghai. I really enjoy the atmosphere and the cuisine was exquiste. I will go back there again when I visit Shanghai again.

posted by Raymond on June 23, 2006 01:37 PM

Hope I didn't confuse anyone - I went to the HK branch of Ye Shanghai. Haven't been to Shanghai itself, though I'd love to some day.

Biechl, I hope you had a good meal, although I don't have any affiliation with the restaurant. :)

posted by Arthur on July 16, 2006 05:40 AM