Zuishe 醉舍 @ Shanghai

Recent trip to Shanghai with Princess and we had a company reunion. Picked this Huaiyang restaurant near our office in Raffles City Changning in the Longemont Shopping Mall.

Zui She is a restaurant chain that specialised in Shanghainese and Huaiyang cuisines. The price is mid range and caters to mainly the office workers around the area. It has just recently opened in Longemont, a very popular mall that has three floors dedicated to all kinds of good eats. There are at least 50 restaurant and numerous food stores in this mall at any one time to cater for all tastes and budgets.

Braised Beef Tongue 老卤牛舌

Braised beef tongue is a classic traditional braised meat product, with a tender and juicy texture and a rich, savoury flavour. The key to its preparation lies in removing any gamey smell and controlling the cooking time. Through repeated simmering in the old braising liquid, the beef tongue fully absorbs the essence of the spices and meat juices, making it an excellent accompaniment to drinks.

Hot Braised Goose 热卤老鹅

Braised goose 卤鹅 is a traditionally a Teochew specialty. In Huaiyang cuisine, braised goose is classically prepared as Yangzhou Saltwater Goose (扬州盐水鹅) rather than the dark, soy-heavy Teochew versions. This iconic Jiangnan dish focuses on the natural flavour of the meat, utilising a subtle herbal master brine. The meat remains exceptionally juicy, while the skin is firm and the fat melts in your mouth without feeling greasy. The taste is a delicate balance of savoury, slightly salty, and lightly sweet.

Crystal Pork Jelly 水晶肴肉

Crystal Pork Jelly 水晶肴(yáo)肉, also known as Zhenjiang Pork Aspic 镇江肴肉, is a traditional specialty dish from Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, belonging to the Su cuisine. The finished dish features red meat and white skin, a smooth and translucent appearance, and a clear, crystal-like broth, hence its beautiful name “Crystal.” When eaten, it is characterised by its tender and juicy lean meat, non-greasy fatty meat, and overall crispy, fragrant, and flavourful taste. Served with shredded ginger and Zhenjiang vinegar, it offers an even more unique flavour.

Handmade Candied Lotus Root 手工糖藕

Candied lotus root 糖藕 is a classic traditional dessert from the Jiangnan region. It is made by stuffing sweet and soft glutinous rice into the hollow lotus root, simmering it over low heat until it is tender, and then drizzling it with syrup and osmanthus flowers. The result is a smooth texture and a rich lotus root aroma. Interestingly, these are served as an appetiser and not a dessert.

Stir-fried Kale Shoots with Arctic Clams 芥兰苗炝拌北极贝

Water Spinach Sprouts Mixed With Tea Cakes 空心菜苗拌茶馓

Tea-flavoured fried dough twists 茶馓 are made by boiling water with ingredients such as brown sugar, honey, Sichuan peppercorns, and shallot peels, then mixing the dough with appropriate amounts of eggs and cooking oil. The dough is then repeatedly kneaded, rolled into thick strips, twisted into balls, and then rolled or stretched into rings of evenly sized, coiled strips. These are then deep-fried until golden brown. The dough twists were crushed and sprinkled on shredded water spinach to provide crunch for the salad.

Baked Lobster with Black Truffle and Scallion Sprouts 黑松露丝苗焗龙虾

This is like a fried rice with lobster flavoured with MSG and dark soy sauce. Not truffle taste or at least I couldn’t taste it. I like the fact that they used jasmine rice instead of the usual pearl rice common in China.

Steamed White Fish with Da Hong Pao 大红袍蒸白水鱼

Steamed white croaker 蒸白条 is a classic Jiangnan home-style dish, known for its tender flesh and original flavour. The secret to its preparation lies in steaming over high heat for 8 minutes after the water boils to lock in the moisture; after steaming, the fishy water must be discarded, and finally, hot oil and steamed fish soy sauce are drizzled over it to bring out the aroma. This white croaker 白条 is one of the three whites of Taihu Lake. It is sought after for its clear taste, delicate flesh and subtle fattiness. However it has a major flaw – it has a lot of bones, seriously lots of bones. Because of its delicate taste, it is often paired with other condiments with equally delicate taste, like chicken fats 鸡汁. 

Steamed Crab Roe with Squid Ink Meatloaf 墨鱼汁肉饼蒸膏蟹

Squid ink is mixed with minced pork onto which mud crab is placed and steamed together. Innovative take on the traditional steam crab on glutinous rice. Not my favourite dish in a banquet as I cannot let myself go and dig in with my hands. Try eating crab with a pair of chopsticks and you know what I mean.

Tomato Sauce Chestnut Pumpkin 茄汁板栗南瓜

Pumpkin is cut into the size of chestnuts, coated with batter and deep fried. It is then added to chestnuts and cooked in tomato sauce like sweet and sour pork. Same texture from the two food, except one tasted nutty and the other was sweet.

Braised Pig Trotters with Rock Sugar 冰糖煨猪手

Only when I learn to cook this dish that I realise the colour of the braised trotter comes from the caramelised rock sugar and not the dark soy sauce. 烹糖色 or “cooking the sugar colour” is the quintessential step to make a beautiful glistening glaze on the braised trotter (or pork belly or any other red braised food).

Braised Dried Scallops and Ham with Shredded Dried Tofu 瑶柱火腿煮干丝

Braised Dried Tofu Strips 煮干丝 is a classic Huaiyang dish that tests the knife work of the chef. Its essence lies in slowly simmering extremely fine dried tofu strips in a rich broth until soft and tender, allowing them to absorb the essence of seafood and poultry. The trick of such a technique is the shredded tofu. A solid block of tofu is carefully cut into tiny juliennes of not wider than 2mm. The best chef can use soft tofu and still achieve the same thickness, resulting a beautiful tofu blossom when placed in the soup.

Dry pot Crispy Pork Intestines 干锅脆皮大肠

I love crispy pork large intestines (the colon to be exact). The deep frying has rendered the fats from the offal, and the spices remove all the muskiness. Tossing them in a cast iron casserole with shoestring fries was totally unnecessary. There were too much fries and not much intestines.

Stir-fried Seaweed and Spinach 紫菜炒菠菜

A combination that I have not tried before. Spinach gets mushy and a bit bitter (siap siap in Teochew) when cooked. But the seaweed neutralised that “siapness” and gave it the umami the dish needed.

Mushroom and Old Chicken Soup 菌菇老鸡

Chicken soup for the soul, the broth is clear and lightly fragrant with trumpet mushrooms and bamboo fungus.

Wuxi Xiaolongbao 无锡小笼包

Wuxi Xiaolongbao 无锡小笼包 is a version of the soup dumpling genre that originated from Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Wuxi style are larger (sometimes twice as large as a Nanxiang xiaolongbao) and have sweeter fillings. 

Sweet Fermented Rice Balls 酒酿圆子

Sweet fermented rice balls 酒酿圆子 are a classic traditional dessert in the Jiangnan region of China. They are made by cooking small glutinous rice balls with fermented rice wine (laozao 醪糟). They have a soft, sweet taste with a hint of rice and wine aroma. Goji berries, osmanthus, and lotus root starch were added to enrich the taste and aroma.

For a dinner menu for 8 person, this is considered a normal meal, but too extravagant for me. The damage is around RMB 1,200 (~SGD 240), which works out to be $30 per person. You will never get this kind of pricing in Singapore, but in Shanghai this is the cutthroat price war that F&B are facing today. Hence food safety is fast becoming a problem in China as F&B operators cut corners to lower the costs. Thankfully there are still reliable restaurant chains like these that are going for the long haul.

Zui She – New Huaiyang Cuisine 醉舍·新淮扬菜(长宁龙之梦店)
长宁路1018号龙之梦6层黄中庭6025、6027、6029号

Visited Apr 2026