2012-04-07

Restaurant #61: Shanghai Kitchen, Taipei



 (Visited in June, 2011)

Shang Hai Xing Cun, Shanghai Kitchen, is one of popular Chinese restaurants specialized in Shanghai-style food in Taipei. Their signature item, braised pork, has rich texture of taste, with high quality of pork. My friend invited me for lunch.

Stinky Tofu

When people visit Taiwan, they always wonder what Stinky Tofu is. As you can guess, it is tofu with VERY STRANGE smell. It is really strange… I usually cannot stand it. However, I was surprised when this item was served in front of us. There was no such a smell! My friend told me that that is just because we were the only table who ordered Stinky Tofu. Ha ha. I see. If many tables order it, then we could SMELL it.

This Stinky Tofu (清燉臭豆腐) was steamed one, with spicy soup. Once I put my nose closer to the dish, yeah I could slightly smell it. It is stinky tofu. As you can see, soup was made of spicy oil and red pepper. Surprisingly, it tasted good.

Braised Pork

Here is their signature item, Braised Pork (東坡肉) (NT$ 420). I forgot to take a picture, but it was served with white bun (割包). Take one piece of pork, put on top of white bun with shredded green onion then enjoy the richness taste of the pork. Wow! I know the similar taste of this sauce, because on Japanese food, we have similar item called Kakuni (角煮). However, this braised pork was quite different. Tenderness, sauce, texture… I have never tasted like this before, especially I was astonished by the tenderness of pork. The meat simply melted in my mouth, without biting. The fatty part was like pudding, and don’t even feel it would hurt my cholesterol number. Quantity was a lot, so just a two of us could not finish all. I brought it back to my home and ate with steamed rice the next day, which was also tasty.

Beancurd Preserved Vegetables with Soybean paste

雪菜百頁 (NT$ 420). This was interesting item. I am not quite sure what it was, but I believe it was something like Yuba (湯葉). Yuba was cooked with interesting vegetable, so-called 雪菜. I have tried雪菜 before, and I kinda like feeling in my mouth when I bite it.

Sour Fish

Last item is Sour Fish (醋溜魚片). To tell you the truth, it was okay taste among other items. I think it is just because of my taste. Of course, it was delicious, but I personally not a huge fun of sourness. Sweetness and sourness, for me, are a bit too strong taste for me. I like light taste, as close as raw or original taste. So this dish had heavy taste. I also thought their fish was not fresh enough, which was disappointing. Ironically, this was the most pricy dish in this lunch.

Their service was alright, but they could train workers more properly since their food is great. Sadly, the friendliest person was a guy in bullet parking. I would like to go back there again to enjoy their braised pork. Next time, I hope I get just a little bit better service.

http://www.shanghaikitchen.com.tw/