Shanghainese folklore.

Our friend brought us all to her Dad’s favourite Shanghainese restaurant in Wan Chai tonight for some pure and traditional food.

The ‘Scallion Pancake‘ was awesome with a nice toasty crust and some chewy dough inside, fitted with enough scallions and sprinkled with loads of sesame. The french beans with minced meat were also tasty, savoury and rich from the meat and gravy with a snappy texture from the beans.

I really liked the beef dish here, not particularly because of the meat, nor because of the peppers but rather because of the bamboo that was so thinly slices it came across like noodles and made it all really nice. I was slowly starting to think that every dish here comes with a very similar gravy, thankfully a very tasty one.

After a plate of lovely chewy stir fried rice cake finally their signature dish – ‘The Lion’s Head‘ – showed up at our table. I had never heard of this before but it was pretty much an oversized, softly tender Chinese meatball covered in bok choy and the same delicious gravy that we knew so well now.

‘Lao Shang Hai’ is no thrills for sure but offers great and solid homecook style Shanghainese fair with highly friendly and dapper waiters in a traditional atmosphere. Pretty good.

Hong Kong Lao Shang Hai Restaurant 老上海飯店
UG1 Novotel Century Hong Kong
238 Jaffe Road 5-7號大會堂低座3樓
Wan Chai
Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China
Tel: +852 2827 9339