Many foreigners think Chinese people spend too much time preparing their food. But for most local restaurants, the time-consuming way they cook dishes is as important as the flavour and something they are proud of.

The Shanghai Restaurant is just such an exemplary restaurant that deeply emphasizes the Chinese culinary style and dining culture. It specializes in Shanghai cuisine but also makes sophisticated modifications to the original style, which then becomes the "secret recipes" of the restaurant.

The owner is a Chinese Singaporean who said that he opened the restaurant especially for those who truly understand the Chinese culinary culture. In addition to the food, the interior is in traditional Chinese style and also a combination of the East and West.

Walls of the 800-square-metre dining room are decorated with Chinese handwritings, artworks and oil paintings, and there is also some antique stoneware. Dining tables are separated by wooden folding screens with plenty of room between them.

Each of the eight private rooms in the restaurant is named after a famous Chinese poet, with an example of calligraphy of their poems hung inside.

Most of the dishes served in The Shanghai Restaurant are traditional but creative. They can be traced back to old-style Shanghainese dishes but on the other hand, they may contain new ingredients or Newsdifferent cooking methods. One of its signature dishes, Tea-flavour beef (38 yuan, US$4.8), is inspired by the traditional red spiced beef but now boasts new sauces such as tea and red wine. Compared to the old style, the flavour of the tea spiced beef has been lightened,accompanied with a refreshing fragrance and a slight taste of red wine.

Shanghai cuisine is usually known for its excessive sweetness and greasy taste but such qualities could hardly be found on the dishes in The Shanghai Restaurant.

Fresh water prawn in secret sauce (118yuan, US$14.8) is also transformed from a traditional Shanghai dish-sauteed shrimp and now cooked with the Reishi powder and tiny chestnuts as the topping. Reishi is a special kind of mushroom which is regarded by most Chinese as an amazing nourishment. The fleshy shrimp tasted mild and fresh and its meat mixed with chestnuts created a wonderful feeling in the mouth that the diner should slowly savour every flavour. When sampling the dish, I can also taste slight bitterness from the prawn meat as well as the extract due to the Reishi. The dish was not oily at all and very delicate.

As light as the "secret sauced" shrimp was, the Fresh crab with beancurd (138yuan, US$17.3) is another creation based on the traditional delicacy. The soup had a splendid presentation as a red flower crab was put in the centre, with two eyes staring at you. But the crab was only an ornament as its meat and eggs were already taken out and mixed with the beancurd in the soup. To always keep the soup hot during the meal, the chef deliberately placed the dish above a small fire and the glass container, I would say, was also exquisite.

A dish which appeared very greasy but virtually delicious was Pork wrapped in straw with abalone sauce (38 yuan, US$4.8) served in a lovely porcelain bowl. Despite a small portion, the dish had an impressively red shine and easily stimulated my appetite. The meat, half fat and half muscle, deeply absorbed the flavour of the abalone sauce and tasted especially tender and heavy. In fact, such a pork dish is usually difficult to prepare and in many occasions, chefs have to pour oil on the cooked pork to create a shining presentation. But the pork I sampled in The Shanghai Restaurant was not very greasy, but with a more natural taste.

A special vegetarian menu is also provided in The Shanghai Restaurant, among which the Bamboo fungus with asparagus (38yuan, US$4.8) is especially worthy of recommendation. Five different vegetables were put together on a fan-shaped plate and the speciality of the dish was that the asparagus was first wrapped with the golden needle mushrooms and both of them were wrapped with bamboo fungus. The flavour was also light and refreshing.

All diners at The Shanghai Restaurant are expected to be given a special dish for free, that is, a small bowl of jelly made of Jasmine tea. It is really a pleasant gift because of its fragrant scent and cool taste and that could also refresh your taste buds during meals.

The Shanghai Restaurant
Location: 4F, Shanghai Times Square, No.99 Central Huaihai Road
Tel: 021-6391-0152