For cold dishes, the deep-fried pomfret is a highlight. Instead of the usual black carp, chef Lu has selected pomfret for this common Shanghai household dish, and as a result, the "secret sauce marinated" fish boasts a more tender texture than the river kind.
While red-braised pork used to be a must-have for a benbangcai (Shanghai local cuisine) meal, an alternative is offered here at Yong Yi Ting, the braised beef rib. It looks, at first sight, much more rustic and even plain in a clay bowl, colored dark brown, compared with the usually shiny pork meat.
The boneless rib has been stewed for such a long time that it almost melts in your mouth, and the sauce is much lighter and far less sweet compared to the sticky pork sauce, thanks to the absence of crystal sugar. The chef has also replaced peeled hardboiled eggs with a handful of hickories, which gives a sharp contrast in texture with the crisp meat.
Of course, the mouth-watering new version of this classic dish has a jaw-dropping price tag of 288 yuan ($47) a plate.
The shredded bean curd in chicken broth, a signature cuisine from Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, is unsurprisingly divine. The creamy white hair-like shreds of bean curd (traditionally 1-centimeter thick bean curd should be shredded into 30 pieces), is stacked into a tower with slices of pink ham and fish noodle in the glowing yellow soup, accompanied by some green vegetables.
As the Hong Kong-headquartered hotel has a good reputation for dim sum and snacks, we skipped the sweet dessert to save some space for them. A wise decision, as it turned out.
The chili crab meat dumplings added fun and excitement for the taste buds, while the pea seed fried dumplings, covered with a golden, crispy skin, had a more "ladylike" taste, thanks to the juicy stuffing of shrimps and vegetables.
We recommend
Print
Save