Majority of the Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong serve Cantonese food. When we want a change we go for Shanghainese food which has their own specialties and the most popular is the Xiao Long Bao.
Our favorite Shanghai restaurant is Wu Kong and a new favorite which is more casual and affordable is Shanghai Popo in iSquare, a mall in Tsim Sha Tsui. We liked the food so much we ate there twice last December.
I really liked that you can order soup by the bowl which isn’t a common thing in Chinese restaurants.
Unique to Shanghainese cuisine is Wuxi eel which are strips of eels deep fried until super crunchy. It has a sweet, salty taste.
Last December they had a special menu which featured all crab dishes. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it.
As much as I like their regular pork xiao long bao, the one mixed with crab was even better. It had a bit of sweetness from the crab and just the right texture of pork and so much juice!
I confess I don’t eat enough veggies but I devoured these seasonal greens covered with the most delicious crabmeat sauce. You can see all the crab fat in the sauce too. If I can have this dish everyday I would gladly eat my veggies.
You can’t have too much crab right? Shanghai Popo is an expert with fried rice. You can eat this by itself and call it a meal. It’s almost as good as their 336 Special Fried Rice which I tried before.
To balance all the seafood and veggies I ordered a pork dish with knots of beancurd skin. Nothing great.
We went back another day for more. We started with an order of crab xiao long bao. My mom loves this glutinous rice cake or ‘nian guo’. This is actually tikoy without sugar and used in savory dishes. I never liked it until I tried this one covered with crabmeat sauce. I think I will eat anything covered with crabmeat sauce. 😀
My favorite dish was shrimp covered in salted egg yolk. We have this dish in some restaurants in Manila but they often taste bland and ‘bitin.’ Shanghai Popo’s version was quite salty and very umami. I wanted to order a bowl of white rice. This is a must order!
Do try this restaurant when you are in the Tsim Sha Tsui area. The dishes are small and good for 2-4 people. Small means you can order more and that’s a good thing.
Shanghai Popo 上海婆婆
Shop 605-606, 6/F, iSQUARE, 63 Nathon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
尖沙咀彌敦道63號iSQUARE國際廣場6樓605-606號舖
telephone: 2806 1833
website
Shoot First Eat Later 