New & Noted Restaurants

Full House

What: Contemporary Shanghainese cuisine

Where: 221 Shimen Er Lu, near Xinzha Lu. Tel: 6209 1686

Why: You like your local food with a side of style

Ambience is what Edwin Ng does. Bali Laguna has its lake, Thai Gallery, its art. Full House, the latest hand in the restaurateur’s deck of cards, has a waterfall and the same authenticity diners have come to expect from the Hong Kong native’s other restaurants.

After convincing a chef from the partnership behind Old Jesse restaurant, a Shanghainese institution, to join his culinary family, Ng set about designing a menu and a restaurant that pays homage to tradition while moving the cuisine into the city’s up-and-coming dining scene. Red scrolls with daily specials hang on walls built up from reclaimed bricks, and neon-lit dumbwaiters carry bowls of shredded jellyfish marinated in aged vinegar from the kitchen to the bustling dining room. The decor could easily have turned into a visual clash of eras, but the effect is time-honoured modernity and it works.

House specialties and ‘Shanghai Notable Dishes’ populate the menu, reassuring uncertain diners and promising an authentic experience. The inevitable bowl of hongshao rou is vivid, full of silky smooth slices of unctuous pork and, if the orderer is wise to the optional add-ons, texturally fascinating knots of tofu skin. Vegetarian duck, really just tofu and mushrooms in a clever disguise, is softly fried to a near crisp. The dangerously rich crab roe with river shrimps offers sweet, bite-sized crustaceans swimming in a liberal serving of bright orange roe.

Typical Shanghainese meals end with a soup and a sweet, and Full House ensures you won’t want to leave without a taste of either. The salted pork and bamboo soup was thick with savoury slurps we couldn’t get enough of, but the real treat is dessert. Their specialty deep-fried glutinous rice balls filled with peanut puree taste are like tangyuan’s hedonistic cousin. No matter how full of Shanghainese food you are, you won’t be able to resist.