A gourmet friend of mine knew I was coming to Shanghai, arranged this private dining in a mixed use building 商住两用楼.

The building is about 5 min walk from the nearest subway station. And then you will come to a rather old building and when you ask the security guard, he will point you to Tower 1, which is on the right hand side. Go into the lobby and go to 15th floor. You will see the backdrop with the Zhuan script 汤 in the lift lobby.

The restaurant is inside an apartment in the building with all the rooms converted to private dining box. The bigger rooms can sit 10, while our room can sit 6 comfortably. The living room and kitchen are all combined into a professional where Chef Tang and his assistants churn out all the delicious Shanghainese cuisine.

Chef and Owner Tang Qiang used to own a restaurant called 汤一膳. He closed the operations during the pandemic and opened this private dining to keep his kitchen staff employed. Together, they continue serving authentic, classic Shanghainese cuisine 本帮菜.

Chef Tang is an interesting character, a typical 上海老克勒 Shanghainese gentleman. He is always well-dressed with colourful tops, even when he is working in the kitchen.

The Dinner

In this private dining, there’s no menu and they serve whatever freshest and in season ingredients that Chef Yang can find in the local markets. All you need is to tell Chef Yang when you reserve a table the number of people and any allergy, and then you leave it to the chef – kind of Shanghai-style omakase.

Shanghainese wantons 上海馄饨

While waiting for everyone to get to the place, going through the evening traffic of Shanghai, we started with some Shanghainese wantons that had been cooked in chicken stock. These dumplings were made with pork and chives filling. What you get will be what chef feels like eating that day for lunch. They were quite big and filling, so we just took a couple to ease the hunger while we waited.

Appetisers 冷碟

We started with four appetisers 冷碟 – a seemingly simple fruit salad 水果色拉, very crispy and delicious pan fried yellow croakers 香煎小黄鱼, chewy and flavourful stewed octopus 卤章鱼 and Wuxi-style sweet and sour pork ribs 无锡排骨.

Soy sauce and yellow wine marinated roe crab 生腌醉膏蟹

Autumn is the best time for crabs of all sorts. The first course was raw soy sauce and yellow wine marinated roe crab 生腌醉膏蟹. The Shanghai style is different from the Teochew one because of the use of yellow wine in the marinade. THe mud crab used was a female crab with lots of roe. The roe solidified with the marinade and turned into something creamy and full of umami. Love this.

Bamboo shoot, bean curd skin and salted pork with boy choy 腌笃鲜

There are so many variation of this dish in the greater Jiangsu-Shanghai region. Some are more soupy, some with simpler ingredients. But the basic combination is the same – salted pork belly 咸五花肉, knotted bean curd skin 腐皮卷, bamboo shoots 竹笋 and bok choy 上海青. This version I liked because of the use of chicken stock to give some protein sweetness (amami) to the overall taste.

Sautéed river prawns 爆炒河虾

The whole shrimp was deep fried with its shell and then sautéed with soy sauce. This was really good snacking while we drank and talked.

Braised pork trotters with soy beans 黄豆焖猪蹄

The pork trotter has been braised in a rich brown sauce with soy beans until all the fats and collagen under the skins on the trotter have been rendered. The collagen seeped into the sauce making it deliciously sticky. The skin was still bouncy and yet melted in the mouth. Wonderful.

Braised bullfrog and river eel 黄焖牛蛙鳝鱼

This next dish I have never tasted before anywhere else. The combination of bullfrog 牛蛙 and river eel 鳝鱼 was very unique, as the chef took his inspiration from Sichuan cuisine. Taking two animals that live in the river and cooking them together, the taste was delicious and the eel was cooked just right.

Sautéed pork liver 爆炒猪肝

Deceivingly simple, but sautéed pork liver 爆炒猪肝 is a real test of the chef’s control of the fire and wok toss. A minute longer the liver would taste like rubber. A toss too little, not all the liver slices would be coated with the same amount of sauce.

Steamed hairy crabs 清蒸大闸蟹

Highlight of the evening was the in season hairy crabs. The Chinese mitten crab 中华绒螯蟹, commonly known as the hairy crab, is famed for its orangey roe (female) and rich milt (male). It’s conventional wisdom to have the female crab before the lunar month of September, and male crab after the lunar month of October, which was when this meal was taken. These were 450g male crabs from Yangcheng Lake.

Crabs from Yangcheng Lake have been famed for decades to be home to the best hairy crabs in the world. The crabs from this lake are more expensive than those from any other freshwater lake in China. The conditions and natural ecosystem of this lake allows the growth and development of the crabs to result in them having sweet and fragrant meat, with high levels of milt and roe upon sexual maturity.

Some important characteristics of this crab include a dark green back, golden legs, yellow hairs, and a white belly. Also, if you were to take an authentic Yang Cheng Lake hairy crab and wipe its back clean of water, it will still appear to be very shiny. 

The crab was at its prime, the milt was sticky and plentiful, and the roe was creamy and bitter in the way I loved. Satisfied, I reassembled the shells back into a crab.

Steamed silver pomfret 清蒸银鲳鱼

At first I thought after all these good food, the steamed silver pomfret 清蒸银鲳鱼 would not go wrong. However, it was not as good as the rest as the fish was not tip top fresh.

Sautéed tatsoi with winter bamboo shoot 塔菜冬笋

塔菜 Tatsoi is an Asian variety of Brassica rapa grown for greens. Also called tat choy, it is closely related to the more familiar Bok Choy. Paired with the fresh winter bamboo shoots 冬笋, this makes a really good eat in winter.

Braised sea cucumber with Shanghai noodles and dried shrimp 红烧辽参+开阳拌面

And finally, Shanghai noodles mixed with scallion oil and soy sauce with dried shrimp called kaiyang 开阳 was served with a section of the braised sea cucumber. Both were delicious, but I loved the use of pork lard in the noodles. Extra points for the humble noodles.

Overall it was a really good eat, with some very innovative interpretation of classics. The ingredients were all seasonal and very high quality even though it came from a small kitchen. Chef Tang was really on top of his game here.

汤一膳私房菜
上海市黄浦区瑞金南路345弄1号15A2室（裕兴大厦）
地铁4号线，鲁班路站下，3号出

Visited Dec 2023