Shanghai Min

In this extravagant, 豪华, Gatsy-​esque area of steakhouses, giant Gucci stores, etc etc, you wonder if there is anything around really worth the price. Shanghai Min is indeed one of more high-​end Chinese restaurants, but the food is solid.
The menu is an impressive hard-​cover bound book with glossy photogenic photos that make you want to order everything. I would recommend in particular the 生煎包 and the salad, plus honorable mention to the broiled chicken soup.
1) It must be no surprise that the 生煎包 (pan fried soup dumplings) is good since it is is a Shanghai dish, but it was a surprise how good it was! This was actually the first place I ever had 生煎包, which is unfortunate because now I can’t eat it anywhere else without being disappointed. At Shanghai Min, their 生煎包 have the perfect fluffy bread, which is more steamed than fried so it is not greasy at all. Inside its a tasty pork and soup filling, so it is like a giant XLB in 包 form and sprinkled with some sesame and green onion (though they fall off so it’s almost more just for decoration). The caveat? This giant fresh ball of deliciousness is steaming hot on the inside, so you need to wait awhile to avoid the dilemma of biting into the amazing dumpling, almost burning your mouth, but having to slurp up the soup anyway so that it won’t go to waste. (Or maybe that’s just me being extreme when I discover something tasty)
2) Salad?! I know this is the last item you would expect to be recommended at a fancy Chinese restaurant, but it’s actually really good! The vegetables are diverse and fresh, and the special dressing is unlike other salad dressing I’ve had before – it has a hint of miso and maybe some balsamic vinaigrette, but my palate isn’t refined enough to detect anything beyond that. In any case, it’s delicious and one of the rare places during my HK trip that I get a decent portion of veggies (quite nice after relying on that one single 白菜 in my on-​the-​go 大家樂 meals)
3) I’m not sure it’s called broiled chicken soup, but it’s basically a broiled chicken soup. The quality is very good, especially the chicken and the chicken broth. The portion is small-​ish and it’s difficult to share, but since it’s pricey we usually just share anyway.
Ambiance is nice (as expected). There’s plenty of sunlight, in contrast to the interior décor motif of black, so it’s classy and cheerful at the same time. Another plus is the food presentation; they really pay attention to detail and make everything look unique: the salad is in a modernistic angular bowl, the 生煎包 are arranged in a pattern of rows, and the broiled chicken soup comes with a mini flame – not sure how useful it is, but fire with your food always adds a significant wow factor.