NOW CLOSED
ShanghaiYe
On 22 September 2007 (Saturday), D and I went to a newly opened "high-end" Chinese restaurant called ShanghaiYe on Holloway Head.
There used to be a Chinese buffet restaurant called Cathey here; ShanghaiYe replaced it a few months ago.
It is not easy to explain where it is, but the closest landmark is the Mailbox.
This is the interior; it was half-full when we arrived at around 2 o'clock. This photo was shot at around 3 o'clock after the meal, and it is why there isn't nobody.
The décor is elegant, but it is also quite dark. I don't like dark place to have lunch.
There is a strange golden miniture Thai ship ornament next to the wall. In the same building, just next to ShanghaiYe there is a Thai restaurant called Pad Thai, presumably owned by the same person.
When we placed our order, they brought us chili sauce and pickled mooli as compliments.
Different from the other dimsum places, we needed to order the tea. I don't remember exactly how much, but it was about £1.50 for one. It was provided in a small pot, and hot water was topped up constantly.
This is chicken wrapped in pandan (or pandanus) leaves (£3.20). Pandan leaves are often used for Malay cuisine, but I have never seen used for Chinese cuisine.
Marinated (or precooked) chicken morcels were rapped in pandanus leaves and deep-fired. It was not bad, but I thought was rather pointless, as I did not feel the flavour of pandanus. Also it was messy to remove the leaves; the part of leaf exposed to oil could be eaten being fried crisp, but the inner part was too hard hard to eat, so it was impossible to eat it without unwrapping.
These are Xiao Long Bao (£2.50). They look larger in photo than in reality. The soup and meat ball were separated in the skin as they should be.
There was, however, a problem. To eat this type of Xiao Long Bao, we need to break the skin on the Chinese spoon so that the soup comes out. If you don't do so, the hot soup burst into your mouth and you get burnt. The Chinese spoons provided were too small to contain the dumpling and the soup coming out of it. Shame.
As this is our first visit, we thought it was a good idea to try something else than dim sum. This is Shanghai classic noodles (£5.90). Udon type thick wheat noodles were stir fired with shredded cabbage and pork, flavoured with Chinese sweet soy sauce. The plate is Thai, if you notice.
This was not bad, but nothing special and it is not a kind of food you expect to eat at a restaurant. I might well have cooked at home by myself, and the result would have been better. I also thought that they should not have used this type of cabbage, as it remained quite hard. The oriental cabbages are softer and nice to be stir-fried, but not English one; they should have used Chinese cabbage or the like, or parboil the leaves before stir-frying.
This is rare: dumplings made with spinach leaves (£2.80). Filling is prawns and water chesnuts.
As the soup was salty, we did not need soy sauce. Spinach had a strong flavour. People love spinach as we do should love this too.
Not being full with these, we ordered also a dessert to share.
This is a steamed custard bun; we got 3 of these in one steamer (£2.60). These were really good.
The total bill was £18 including 10% service charge (service was good, so no complaint), but we got 20% discount for their opening offer. Without discount, the bill should have come to ca. £22.
It was a nice meal overall, but for us the best dim sum place is still Golden Pond. But, there is no denying that ShanghaiYe has many interesting offers and we will probably return.
Web site: http://www.shanghaiye.co.uk/
Address: 86 Holloway Head, Birmingham B1 1NB
Tel: 0121 666 6899
