No.1 Shanghai Cuisine 滬上

Update Nov 28, 2013: This restaurant is now closed.

There are many types of Chinese cuisine. Tonight, we explored another venue for Shanghain-nese food in the great plains of Richmond. This place calls itself “Number One Shanghai Cuisine”. I don’t know about you guys, but I sure want to find out if in fact they are “number one”!

I must say, however, that the parking availabililty there is TERRIBLE.  There was probably less than 50 parking spots for the entire strip mall (right beside Aberdeen Centre).  There was an incident where a middle-aged Chinese man driving a Silver Mercedez C300 ( i will refer to the driver as the ‘crazy dude’) that wanted to ‘save’ a spot for his friends by attempting to occupy BOTH parking spots (front and back parking spaces) by parking his car in BETWEEN the two spots.  Needless to say, when Wendy was trying to back in, the crazy dude backed up even further to prevent us from going in.  Even when the parking lot attendant saw the incident and told the crazy dude that he can’t ‘reserve’ spots, he continued to backup.  So Wendy’s dad and I got out of the car, the guy quickly gave up and moved back into his original spot – allowing Wendy to park.  Honestly, what sane man will try to save his buddies a parking spot in this fashion while a car is actively trying to get in there?  Worst of all, he thought it was perfectly fine.  I thought I have seen most of the crazies on the road centered in the vicinity of the Alderbridge/Hazelbridge area but this one takes the cake.  Why do these people insist in continuing to cement the fact that Chinese are bad drivers?  We’ve got people that probably bought their driving licences under the table (or could only pass the test in Sunshine Coast like my aunt), driving massive European branded vehicles going at 40KPH on the fast lane through highways, changing lanes when they didn’t mean to, braking out of nowhere when it’s past midnight on a major road, never showing appreciation when you allow them to budge in, so on.  Seriously…  /rant.  On with the review.

Here is the internal view:

A bunch of chinese families and a LCD screen decorate the place.  The restaurant is quite clean and spacious (probably until we walk into the kitchen) and it was a comfortable place to eat nevertheless.

We ordered a set meal ($62) and we added a ‘DF Fish Fillet w Se’.  Please allow me to decipher: Deep Fried Fish Filet with Seaweed.

Since there are a quite a bit of dishes, I will only provide a brief comment for common items, while the special items will receive some deeper thought.

On the receipt, this dish was called “Comb 2 Cold Dish”.  I am very confident that it meant Combo 2 Cold Dish.  It comprised of some vegetarian offerings (foreground) and some ‘salty chicken’.  The veggie part was great but the chicken was ‘too skinny’, as Wendy’s mom would say.  The chicken definitely did lack some meat but overall, a good start to the meal.

The Song Shao Fish Soup was a mixture of cilantro, egg whites, mushrooms and fish (there were ample amounts of fish).  The problem with many of the soups is that they often are too salty.  This time, it was pretty darn good and another good start to the meal.

As the receipt revealed: Stir Fried Vegetables.  Good stuff.

Steamed Shanghai Dumplings: I found the skin to be ever so slightly too thick, but there was plenty of ‘soup’ inside each dumpling.  And because I’m easy, it was satisfying.

This item was served in a stone pot.  Somehow the receipt title “Braised Pork w/ Soy Sauce” just doesn’t do it for this dish.  Despite that it was on the ‘salty’ side, there was a strong performer in this combo.  The pork was very tender and the stone bowl kept the dish warm throughout the meal.  The one thing that stood out was the fried whole egg (center-right of picture).

I was really looking forward to the Deep Fried Prawns with Rice Wine.  The sauce was delicious but the prawns were mushy.  But since I love shrimp, I selfishly ate half the plate.  Of course, karma strikes as I got a minor allergic reaction on my lips – very likely from the shell.

Then there was the add-on.  The Deep-fried Fish Fillet with Seafood was good stuff.  The first time we tried it was at Top Shanghai on Ackroyd.  We liked it there too.  However I found that the seaweed flavor was more prominent here.  Much better than Western-style fish and chips if you ask me.  You must try this.  Wendy thinks this is cheaper here too…just $12.50 and there were quite a lot of pieces.

Honestly, we were stuff to the brim.  But of course, Wendy loves her dessert!  Since I despise the “Red Bean Soup” dessert which is very common place in Chinese seafood restaurants, I was positively glowing with the selection of Panfried Red Bean Pastry (there was no name on the receipt, so Wendy and I just made the name up) that they offer for all set menus.  It was very HOT.  Wendy’s cousin tried to eat a slab in one bite and we laughed at him when he had to spit the whole thing back out on the plate.  There were 5 of us and there were 10 pieces!  Using my great arithmetic skills, it came to 2 for each of us.  The Panfried Red Bean Pastry was a delight to end our meal at “No.1 Shanghai Cuisine”.

We enjoyed our visit there (and even more so as Wendy’s mom picked up the bill).  Unfortunately, I forgot to check out the washroom decor which was a bit disappointing, but Ben here at Chow Times did!

Summary

Reviewer

Heinz

Review Date

2009-04-11

What Was Reviewed

No. 1 Shanghai Cuisine

Author Rating

3