3.6.9. Restaurant Shanghai Food

This restsursnt brings back memories of high school eating authentic Shanghai food in Hong Kong. Been here a few times with friends. They used to have authentic Shanghai cooking and the taste is very good. It’s not the same now. Perhaps time changes with what they serve.
It’s just very crowded during meal time. The shop has a long history and tables are packed that makes seating very uncomfortable.
I didn’t enjoy their service, period.

I had a great late night bits here. This place has menu written in English and Japanese, too, but still authentic.

Came here for early dinner and was not impressed. We saw the great reviews and decided to give this place a try. We asked waitress for recommendations and she said, «everything is good.» We ended up getting fried (udon) noodles with shrimp and another order with shredded pork. Both were very salty. I think they also over charged us. Anyhow, we’re not coming back here again.

It was extremely crowded but I guess every good place in HK has a wait. The food was very good and the prices were fair.

Food is great! Very crowded during lunch hours. Needs better ventilation in the restaurant. It gets loud, smokey and hot!!!

Authentically delicious! Recommended.
It’s a well-​touristed-​but-​still-​very-​local joint. Lunch crowds are mostly office workers from the area, digging into well-​crafted dumplings and other tasty eats. Quickly became one of our favorites in the area, can highly recommend as long as you’re OK with local-​style table sharing and a venue that’s not located inside of a shopping mall.

Great xiao long bao. Very busy at lunch with shared tables. Was offered an English menu but I knew what I wanted. Was also served a glass of hot tea. Will certainly go back and try other dishes as well.

Came here for the xlb only and they were excellent! It came out to be roughly $ 12 usd for 10 dumplings including 10% service fee and a small charge for tea.

It is not likely you can miss their ad board down the bridge on the way from Wan Chai MTR station to Immigration Tower. They feature Shanghainese cuisine that typical dishes as Pork Chop with Vegetable Rice, Stir-​fry Vegetables in Oyster Sauce, Xiao Long Bao (Steamed Pork Buns), Fish in Sweet and Soy Sauce etc.
Seat down and taste the pork bone soup that has been cooked overnight. Shanghainese food is light and rich in after taste. Food are sourced for healthy options and style are mainly steam and stir-​fry.
Xiao Long Bao are served in steamer. Chinese Pak Choi laid the base that veggie freshness merged into the dough. Little meatball inside remains tender and the juice cannot help splitting and melting out.
Lunch friendly for Wan Chai work community. Sit packed in a round table and share some delicacies. Or each go for one Pork Chop Vegetable Rice/​Shanghai Noodle.

The 369 restaurant in Wanchai is probably one of the best known Shanghainese restaurants in Hong Kong; I don’t know how long its been here but as soon as you step inside you will realize that its been here for ages. House rules: —
1) You will always have to share your table. From my experience at lunch, come what may, you will always be sharing your table with some random person and you just hope has good table etiquette.
2) Do not expect service. I say do not expect service, I should say service that’s reasonably expected from a reasonable person. You are herded to you table by 5 – 6 different people and keep asking you to sit where you don’t want; then two miliseconds later they would have deemed you knowledgeable enough to order lunch for 5 people.
The bad bits over. Now the good bits:
1) Good value– I can’t see anywhere in Wanchai that will give you a soup, a main course and two petite bowls of rice for something 40 HKD. My usual order is the «ma po tofu» which is a hot tofu dish; this has warmed me to the core when Hong Kong’s cold snaps take place and I feel as cold as an igloo in the freezer.
2) Its just plain tasty. The food is good, the portions are good and despite the décor and service I am willing to come back again because it all becomes part of the experience.
If you are in the Wanchai area and looking for a Shanghainese meal– do not miss.

If you want to get a decent Shanghainese feed, but without having to get all fancy at Din Tai Fung or New Shanghai in the Convention Centre, then you should give Shanghai 369. Just under the Wan Chai MTR foot bridge, a lovely local treat awaits you.
Look, I’ll be straight. It’s a very very «local» place, where my two golden rules apply; rinse the crockery and never look in the kitchen. However, if you can get past sharing a big table with 7 other complete strangers, and the din of other diners eating with their mouths open, then you would do well to grab a meal here.
As it is Shanghainese food, the xiao long bao dumplings are a must, as are the pan fried dumplings. They are certainly not as delicate as the Michelin starred venues, and yes the pastry is a little bit thicker, but they have a lot more heart to them, due to aforementioned thick pastry, as well as the copious amount of stuffing in each dumpling. They are the sort of dumplings your mum would make to fatten you up; big, juicy (or soupy!), and full of homely goodness. They are also dead cheap compared to the more fancy places. At last count, it was just a sniff over HKD40 for steamer of 10.
Other delights here include fried pork and salt fish rice, chilli cucumbers, ma po tofu, pretty much all the usual Shanghainese delights one could wish for.
The venue may not be the cleanest or fanciest, not by a long shot, but the staff are friendly (in that shouty Chinese way), and they will do all they can to make you feel welcome. They have a couple of staff who can get by in English, so if you can’t decipher the menu, just ask.
A meal there will rarely set you back HKD200 for two, unless of course you decide to join me on my 50 dumpling challenge — I will not be beaten!