Hutong 胡同

Chinese/Sichuanese restaurant in a very sleek beautiful space on the 28th floor of TST. Wonderful views of the harbor and unique seating spaces.

Great bar upstairs with floor to ceiling windows with a view of the HK skyline and the nightly light show.

28/F 1 Peking Road TST HK
342 88 342

www.aqua.com.hk

Fuchun 富春

A totally local Shanghai food place that my local friend brought me to in Jing'an. I don't think I can find it again but it was delicious and cheap and packed at 7 PM on a Tuesday (he said it always is, and people drive in from afar on weekends).

We had fried spring rolls, a tonkatsu (fried breaded pork), spicy cold noodles, and several kinds of xiaolongbao, which were awesome. Plain, crab, or shrimp, the juices were amazing and the rest delicious as well. First time trying to eat these without a spoon -- the foreigner friendly places where I have always had xiaolongbao has spoons to catch the juices. I had to gracefully hold the squishy dumpling, chew a small hole in the side, then suck out the juices without spilling all over me (took a few tries). But worth it.

I need to practice a little more Mandarin before I try on my own.

Short walk from Jiangsu Station (Line 2), come out Exit #2, walk left for two blocks
静安区愚园路650号(近镇宁路)

Herbal Legend

Surprisingly good Chinese food with a bias towards the healthy... the restaurant itself smells cross between a temple and medicine shop, with incense permeating the space. We were in Xintiandi, though there is another across town as well

The hongbai (? red dates) tea was quite good. Started with yam (yamaimo) with a citrus kick. I really liked the spicy beef though I went too far with some of the red chilis (note: do not suck on them... they are spicy...) The spinach soup and fried eggplant with meat were yummy, and I loved the pumpkin side. Any of the soups would be great -- the chicken stock in mine was wonderful.

Despite the fact that I felt many of the dishes should be good for me, they were yummy and I want to go back. About 150 rmb per person.

Unit 1B No. 1, 123 Lane Xing Ye Road, Xintiandi Plaza.

Lou Wai Lou

Lou Wai Lou is a famous Hangzhou restaurant serving local cuisine like fresh fish and vegetables. It's on West Lake with quite large capacity -- there were two wedding banquets simultaneously on the first floor while the second floor and outsides patios were still open for dinner. The hotel had suggested we arrive by 5 or 5:30 to avoid a wait, as they don't take reservations. We walked in at 5:30 pm and the restaurant was already packed. We couldn't get a table in the front patio that overlooks the lake, but got one of the last in the back courtyard.

There were three of us so we got to order a fair number of dishes, including a local vegetable dish with minced greens and pine nuts, jelly fish, marinated duck, grilled duck liver, and fresh white fish with vinegar-based sauce.

Total 123rmb per person

No 30 Gu Shan Road, Hangzhou, China 310007
0571-87969023

Jade Beauty

Jade Beauty is a chain with Shanghainese food. They have good dumplings and just about anything else Chinese that you could want. Nice decor, large groups, many foreigners, located in the 2F of the new mall in Xintiandi

Zen Chinese Cuisine

Great filling lunch at Zen, a chain with good Shanghainese and other food at Raffles Plaza.

411/412, Raffles Plaza, No 268, Tibet Road (Middle), Shanghai PRC
+86 21 6340 4333

Ye Shanghai Xintiandi

Nice, classy Shanghainese restaurant in the row of old-style houses on Huang Pi Nan (South) Road in Xintiandi. I was there with a group of 20 of so loud and fun colleagues, and we completely ruined the ambiance for all around us. Otherwise, it would be a sweet date spot.

We had family style with over a dozen dishes, pretty good, though not spetacular.

338 Huang Pi Nan Road, Xintiandi, Shanghai

Hakka Ye Ye 客家爺爺

Hong Kong
May 2009

Great Chinese food restaurant from the Hakka region in the heart of Central. Nice place on the second floor of Parekh House building with trendy but cozy interior.

Food was great --
Limited alcohol, we had beer. Very reasonable too (250 HKD I think)

www.yeyegroup.com

2/F, Parekh House, 63 Wyndham St, Central, Hong Kong
+852 2537 7060

Metropolis

Hong Kong
May 2009


Metropol's dining hall is above the Admiralty MTR Station (4F). It is an enormous dim sum restaurant, but with both carts and a buffet center to order from. Delicious and reasonable and every kind of dim sum you could want.

ABC Seafood Restaurant

Lunch
June 2008

Good dim sum place next to the Asian fast food mall by Ranch 99 (in the two story plaza next to it). Absolutely no atmosphere since they were doing construction on the entranceway, but typical yummy dim sum, with carts of goodness and pushy servers. It was mass chaos at peak lunch time but I have seen it more subdued later afternoon. $36 for two for lunch.

www.abcseafood.net

768 Barber Lane, Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 435-8888

Darda Seafood Restaurant

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Lunch with Gautam

Darda Seafood is in the amazing cheap Asian food mall in Milipitas on the west end of Cisco's campus. I think I was told it is Muslim Chinese food (correct me if I am wrong). Whatever it was, it was really good and pretty cheap for ALOT of food.

They start you off with a soup (think it was egg drop and corn) and tea. We ordered a lamb dish and moo shu shrimp and thin sesame bread. Whoa. Dishes are enormous, they had to clear off our condiments to make it fit on the table. Really good food though. The "thin" sesame bread was probably the size of a stuffed crust pizza and alone could have fed the two of us. Again really good though, and think the grand total was $30ish.

296 Barber Court, Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 433-5199