SHANGRI-LA
Verdict : 7/10 (Interesting food, pretty satisfactory)
On 2 February 2008, D and I went to a Sichuan restaurant in Birmingham Chinatown, Shangri-La.
This place was recommended to me by a Japanese friend. Although a Chinese colleague of mine said it was so and so, we decided to give it a go.
We arrived at around 2 o'clock. The Chinese restaurants in B'ham are - I mean, even the busier ones are - usually not busy any more at this time of hour, but on this day, the place was very busy and almost full, while two next-door Chinese places were virtually empty. (The photo was taken on another day when it wasn't so busy).
This is the interior. It is a relatively new restaurant, may be one year old, so the décor is not yet tired. It is elegant for a middle range Chinese restaurant, and I liked it.
At that time, there were only two floor staff - one young male waiter and a middle-aged guy who looked either manager or owner - and they were literally running around the dining area.
We were greeted by the manager-looking guy and given the choice of tables. He brought to us two menus: one large and one small. He explained to us that the larger one is the Sichuan menu, and the smaller one is the Cantonese menu which he said is for the Cantonese people who are many in Brimingham. What I suspected, however, was that the "Cantonese" menu actually was for non-Chinese customers, as it looked so similar to my local Chinese take-aways catered for English clients. The Cantonese restaurants like Chung Ying Garden, Golden Pond, or Tung Lok do not have Chinese menu like that.
On the other hand, the "Sichuan" menu included some "Beijin" dishes. I don't know if the Beijin dishes are popular in Sichaun. Anyway, we chose our dish from this menu, as it looked obvious this was the main menu.
As drink, we asked for Chinese tea. It was jasmine tea, and I think it was for free.
These are Beijin dumplings that we ordered as starter (£4.50). The dish contained 8 small dumplings packed with pork mince and sliced dried Chinese mushroom. The skin was thin and light. The manager who brought the dish asked if we wanted soy sauce or vinegar, so we asked for both. They were, however, fine even without vinegar or soy sauce, being well seasoned.
This is one of the main dishes: pork belly, baikai, mung dahl noodles with spicy soup in cray pot (£7.50).
The dish was served boiling hot, and we welcomed it as it was a very cold day. The pork smelled of star anice, but the soup didn't, so the pork must have braised separately. The vegetable called baicai tasted like the white part of Chinese cabbage. The noodles were transparent, broad and short. The soup was spicy with chili and Sichuan pepper. In total, it was a tasty dish and we liked it.
This is a large bowl of seafood noodles (£8). The noodles were white and thin. Greavy with seafood (slices of scallops, squids and king prawns), egg and black wood ear mushroom was poured over the lukewarm noodles. Green vegetable was julienne of cucumber.
This combination of lukewarm noodles and hot greavy was unfamiliar to me. It wasn't bad, but not convincing to me. I know some types of Chinese noodles were like this, and some people do like as such, but I probably prefer other types of noodles.
We also had a bowl of steamed rice (£1.70), which was not good, as was partly mashy.
The total bill came to £21.70, £24 with tip. It is more expensive than dim sum lunch, but we will happily go back, as the meal was pretty satisfactory.
Shangri-La
51, Station St, Birmingham B5 4DY Map
Tel: 0121 616 2888
Open everyday from 12 noon to 11 (12 Friday and Saturday)
