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Bellagio Cafe 鹿港小镇 – Shanghai, China

We ventured to the Super Brand Mall in Shanghai and found a great place for dinner called Bellagio Cafe and it’s located on the 8th Floor of the mall and relatively easy to find! It’s closer to the IMAX, if it helps! 🙂

We ordered a bunch of dishes and shared it, Asian style! We first started with their Black Pepper Beef on Iron Plate which smelled and tasted absolutely amazing! The amount of pepper used was the perfect amount on beautifully tender pieces of beef!

We also tried Steamed Shrimp with Garlic and I know it doesn’t sound too appetizing, but it was absolutely amazing! The shrimp was really fresh and steamed to perfection. Tons of garlic on top of the shrimp – so luckily we all had at least one piece!

From there, with us being so Asian, we ordered some rice, Taiwanese Fried Rice, and it’s quite different from the fried rice that I’m use to! It is very similar, but different! Usually the main difference between Chinese fried rice and Taiwanese fried rice will be in the egg cooking format. Chinese will basically make scrambled eggs or an omelette first, while the Taiwanese will crack the raw egg into the fried rice and then mix it up.

A very traditional and popular Taiwanese dish is the Three cup chicken (三杯鸡) which is made with 1 cup soy sauce, 1 cup rice wine and 1 cup sesame oil. This recipe will make TONS of chicken, so it’s nice to modify it and Bellagio Cafe definitely modifies it and adds other ingredients such as ginger and basil into the dish to make it extra special!

My husband actually has Hakka ancestors so it was neat to him to find a dish done in this style. When he saw Hakka Stir Fry Dried Squid an Celery he ordered it! It is exactly as it sounds! Most of Taiwanese cooking is derived from 3 simple ingredients, and this dish shows the simplicity of their cooking with rice wine, soy sauce and some sugar! This dish was so simple yet so delicious!

We actually ordered a dessert or 2 for this meal, and the most memorable dessert was their Mango Pancake which was a mango crepe that was really thin around some light cream with some mango inside. It was light and airy and actually kind of refreshing! We really enjoyed this and I ate up my husbands half of the dessert! 🙂

Overall, we loved this place and it’s a place we would recommend for Taiwanese food! It’s neat to see Shanghai has different types of Asian cuisine and it’s actually done properly! The food, service and atmosphere ranks top notch for sure!

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Yong He 永和大王 – Shanghai, China

During our stay in Shanghai, we switched hotels to be in a different location. We ended up staying near the Shanghai Railway Station, and near there is Yong He Da Huang for breakfast and loved the location of our new hotel as it’s close to public transportation, other hotels and lots of good eats!

Once you enter this store front, you’re in the main ordering area where they take your order and you can either go into the back and pick up your order for take out, or sit down and wait for dine in. We did the dine in as we weren’t on a schedule so we can relax. We ordered their Red Beef Noodle Soup 紅燒牛肉麵 with of course some Xiao Long Bao, and I was quite impressed with the bowl of noodles! It had tons of flavour and it wasn’t as greasy as it looks! The beef was tender, and the noodles were excellent! The xiao long bao was in the top ranking too! The skin was thicker than some of the other ones we had on this journey, but it was delicious!

The other items we ordered were some Dou Jiang (豆漿) as it’s “the” thing to drink for us – and for those who don’t know what it is, it’s soy bean drink! The other item that looks pretty funny in the picture is actually Chinese fried dough or You Tiao 油条 wrapped in a thin omelette, with some sauce. It was a greasy and interesting.

We really liked this place! It was pretty local yet in a touristy area, and the food was cheap and delicious! It was fun and convenient as it was a 24 Hour shop!

Hong He 永和大王

梅园店
中亚饭店一层，太平洋火车站店对面
021-63179503

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Xiao Chi Dian 小吃店 – Shanghai, China

A very cool little place that we went to is actually a street side restaurant, which typically are dirtier but local and delicious. This one that we went to was Xiao Chi Dian which directly translates to Little Eat Place, or something like that!

At this little eat restaurant, we ordered some Xiao Long which came to the table in a bamboo basket steaming hot! It was really good! These xiao long bao ranked really highly on our Shanghai trip!! Steaming hot, tons of flavour, great skin with a great filling! It was divine!

The main attraction for this visit actually was for their lao ya fen si tang 老鸭粉丝汤 which was recommended to us by our friends wife! This steaming hot bowl of glass noodles (粉丝) has some duck and tofu in the soup. The flavour of the soup has left us all speechless! So what if this place is a little dirty… the food really compensates for it!

Lastly, we ordered some Fried Pork Chop to share amongst us all! It wasn’t anything to rave about, but it was a great piece of fried pork chop! The pork was still tender and juicy and the crust was really crispy! They used Chinese Vinegar for a dipping sauce which was good, and it helped cut the grease!

Overall, we have nothing negative to say about this place. If I had to say something, it would be that there isn’t a lot of seating at all. They do have tables on the upper floor, and that’s where we sit. We did pretty much take up the entire upstairs… with just 6 of us!

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NanXiang Steamed Bun Bread Shop 南翔饅頭店 – Shanghai, China

We were thinking about delicious xiao long bao and asked our hotel concierge about a great place for them, and they suggested to us to visit Cheng Huang Temple by Yu Garden. From there, we walked around a bit and found a super long line and looked up at the sign… there, it said NanXiang Steamed Bun, so we got in line and waited about 40 minutes before we got to order.

The menu wasn’t extensive at the street level, but there is an eatery upstairs full of food and other options. Of course, we just stayed in line and ordered their famous xiao long bao Steamed Bun with Pork Stuffing was their English translation. The skin was quite thin and delicate and the soup inside the dumpling was phenomenal! It was one of the best we’ve ever had!

Another item that we saw a ton of people order (but not nearly as much as their dumplings was their Steamed Bun with Crab Roe and apparently the locals eat it by sucking the soup out of the bun first, then then eat the bun. Good thing we watched them!

Overall, this was a fantastic place for us to visit! We really appreciated the recommendation and the neat thing is, it’s kind of famous here!! It was so good and the location was great for both locals and tourist. The shopping area around this place is apparently known to be a bit cheaper than the rest of the places. So, it’s a win-win for us for sure!

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Zhang Sheng Ji Restaurant 张生记酒家 – Shanghai, China

We had a little adventure and went to Shanghai, China where we ate a lot! We ate at a restaurant called Zhang Sheng Ji inside the Super Brand Mall on the 6th floor! The food was Shanghai style and it was quite delicious! It was a restaurant that was one of our friends favourite, so she was really excited to take us there!

We didn’t eat a lot this evening as we just got off the plane and was quite tired. We did start with a soup of Bamboo Shoot and Pork Soup and it was really nice after a long day on a plane! The flavours were well developed and it was quite tasty!

One of my favourite dishes is the Squirrel Fish which is a deep fried fish deboned from head to tail (but in tacked) and fried with a pattern to look like a squirrel! It is often a sweet and tangy flavour so you’ll often find pineapple and tomato ketchup with the fish. This one had the sweet and tangy sauce, I don’t recall pineapples, but it was absolutely delicious!

We also had their Sheng Jian Bao which is a pork bun that is pan fried. These buns are steamed with a light and fluffy top and a delicious crispy golden pan fried bottom. These ones were stuffed with delicious pork, kind of like a pot-sticker filling! These were definitely made to perfection, tasty and juicy on the inside too!

Overall, this was a great place that was recommended! I did want to go back, but there were so many other new and exciting places to try, in and around the area (even in the mall!)

Zhang Sheng Ji Restaurant 张生记酒家

Super Brand Mall Shanghai China
6F West Zone 42-43
50476828

10:00 A.M.——22:00 P.M.（Monday – Sunday）