Hidden in the basement level of the Y17 Youth Activity Center (Y17青少年育樂中心) on Renai Road Section 1 (仁愛路一段) opposite the CKS Memorial Hall, Shanghai Kitchen might easily be ignored as just another banquet restaurant serving up bits of over-seasoned meat or fish in starch-ladened sauces. Despite its unimaginative setting — the chintzy easy-stack chairs and a space designed for functionality rather than elegance — Shanghai Kitchen at Y17 proved to be a delight, and not just because of the quality of the food.
Possibly because Y17 caters to the sporting and entertainment needs of families, the restaurant is not only well equipped with a good supply of highchairs and children’s utensils, but the staff also seem particularly adept and understanding. Over numerous visits, captains have all proved able to give thorough explanations of the food to ensure that orders are suitable to both the youngest and oldest members of big parties.
But this solicitude would be insufficient to recommend this basement restaurant if it were not also for the quality of the food, which is often outstanding, and in general very reasonably priced. There are plenty of options for tables of two or three, but some of the signature dishes, such as its excellent braised fish head (砂鍋魚頭, NT$980) require a minimum of seven to eight people.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew, Taipei Times
Both a regular and a picture menu are available, and the illustrated version is a perfect introduction for those unfamiliar with Shanghai cuisine. A number of house specialties are to be highly recommended, especially the braised Dongpo pork (鄉村烤方, NT$420), a chunk of premium belly pork cooked in a sweet soy sauce and eaten wrapped in a steamed bun with some spring onions and coriander leaves. There is great skill in the preparation of this dish to ensure that the fatty meat is not cloying, and that the lean meat contrasts well with the gelatinous fat.
Another typical Shanghai dish that the restaurant does more than justice to is the stewed meat balls in soy sauce (紅燒獅子頭, NT$320). This labor-intensive dish, which requires the meat to be pounded together with various vegetables into a fine paste, has a melt-in-the-mouth quality, and the gravy, with slow-cooked cabbage, has a natural simplicity of flavor the belies the complexity of the preparation.
There are also plenty of outstanding vegetarian options, with stir-fried bamboo shoots
(干炸鮮筍, NT$420), served with deep-fried leaves of preserved mustard. The combination of the sweet bamboo and the crisp salty leaves, along with the slight suggestion of the flames provided by the stir-fry process, make this an exceptional dish. The braised crab eggs with tofu (蟹黃豆腐?, NT$320) is luscious and rich, but the tofu itself is so tender that you can easily pretend you aren’t ingesting an insane number of calories with every mouthful.
Shanghai Kitchen tends to shine in its complex dishes, and one or two of the more homely concoctions were ever so slightly disappointing. The stir-fried shrimp (清炒蝦仁, NT$480), despite being a signature dish, seemed just a little too simple to draw attention, with the prawns neither big enough or sweet enough to make an impact. The same went for the beef sauteed with dried bean curd (干絲牛肉絲, NT$280), normally a sharp, spicy dish, but here just a little too restrained to be exciting.
Service, whether for a table of two or 10, is efficient and friendly, the presentation attractive and neat if a tad conventional. Shanghai Kitchen is an old-fashioned sort of place, and it has many of the old-fashioned virtues, foremost being the care that goes into the production of the food. It’s an ideal choice for a special family meal that won’t break the bank.
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