Gradually, over the winter, my favorite place has easily become Yoho Mall in Yuen Long. I'm a resident of Yuen Long town, which used to be quite nice and relaxing…but since the opening of the Yoho Mall…I haven't felt the need to go down into Kowloon or Central to do any of my shopping. I just head over to Yoho Mall and pop into the Zara.
I'm so grateful that this place opened up. I'm even more grateful that there are some pretty fantastic restaurants in the mall. We'd previously tried out Applegreen, which was pretty darn tasty…so we thought it'd be nice to try the Shanghai place (since we've been on a Shanghai food kick this winter).
Tonight, we tried out Modern Shanghai. It's the Shanghai place that is tucked behind H&M and Zara. If we hadn't walked to the absolute end of the mall…we wouldn't have noticed it. But, the most notable thing about this place is the partially open kitchen. YES, it is MOSTLY for SHOW, but it is nice to see how jiaozi and some of the dim sum dishes are made. The guys behind the glass are also really nice and seem to be joking around most of the time.
Because the restaurant is called Modern Shanghai, I wasn't surprised by the really awesome decor and tableware. I loved the dishes and how each table had one setting with a red bowl. It's like the management really paid attention to detail.
The complimentary starter was a cold dish of pig ears and cucumbers. I absolutely love cold cucumber starters. I love how refreshing this was. It was a good way to start off our menu selection.
The menu, by the way, had a lot of the Shanghai dishes that we were familiar with, which we decided to get. I really do wish I knew more about Shanghai food sometimes…but everything looked wonderful in the photos. The prices were also not that bad!
We got the dan dan mian, which was a spicy noodle in soup dish with bits of pork sprinkled around it. It's one of my favorite dishes to eat recently because it has been a bit nippy outside. So, this dish really warms me up and it also gives me the little kick of spice that makes me feel like I've had a satisfying meal.
We also got our other favorite dish, which is a spicy pork dumpling. I thought this one was pretty good. I still prefer some other ones that I can get on the street, but this one was quite satisfying. It definitely was less oily than some other ones that I've had, which I totally appreciated. It also had a great little savory kick due to the amazing soy sauce it was sitting in.
For drinks we both got an iced lychee drink, which was really nice to have with our spicy dan dan mian. Such a great combination to have.
And…because it is almost a tradition for us to get…we got the siu long bao dish.
It's always satisfying. I haven't had a bad bunch in this city yet! But, these really really nice. I usually use my Chinese spoon to grab some of the vinegar, carefully use my chopsticks to pick up one siu long bao, and carefully place it into my vinegar covered Chinese spoon. Then I carefully eat my wonderful siu long baos in one bite. This way…I can preserve the amazing soup that is inside the siu long bao..and also not have a huge mess dripping down my face.
Does anyone else eat them like that too?
For dessert, we ordered some red bean and banana filled puffs. These were quite light and nice. They weren't overly sweet. The sweetness was only from the bananas. I really enjoyed this light dessert after all the amazing flavors that we had devoured before.
In the end, I really enjoyed Modern Shanghai. It was such a beautiful restaurant with amazing service. It wasn't that crowded, but we did have dinner around 7pm. I really loved the food. I really dug the vibe. I really had a great overall experience! I'm definitely coming back here…probably after I try some other places in Yoho Mall!
