Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Modern Shanghai 家上海 (Olympian City)

This Shanghai restaurant has a few outlets, and today we visit the one in Olympian City. The mall is very busy with lots of traffic, and even though we have booked for an early dinner at 6 pm, very soon the whole restaurant is packed with customers.

The décor is quite nice, with apparent design elements, combining different texture and materials like concrete, brick, tiles, and wood providing an interesting contrast but not awkward. While the seating cannot be called spacious, the tables are reasonably separated.

We order the Huaiyang Appetizer Platter ($248) to start, which has an assortment of the signature starters, including Huadiao-brined chicken, pork trotter aspic, marinated jellyfish head, smoked fish, and roasted bran dough. All are quite tasty and a good way to experience more starters in one go.

For the soup, my wife has “Songsao” Fish Porridge ($52) while I go for Shanghai Style Hot & Sour Soup ($48). The hot & sour soup is quite big in portion and finishing it I am already half full. With plenty of ingredients, I can use a bit more sourness but still a nice soup overall.

As my wife wants to enjoy the seasonal hairy crab, we order a Steamed Whole Hairy Crab ($208), which is decent in size. The crab is quite good but when other dishes start to come, she can only finish half of the crab. Having to determine whether to continue with the crab or switching in order to enjoy dishes which are best eaten while steaming hot like xiao long bao, she goes for the latter. Ultimately when returning to the crab it has already become cold and not as delicious. Something to pay attention.

The Deep-fried Baby Yellow Croakers with Salt & Pepper ($102) is my favourite in the evening, with a crisp skin while the flesh of the yellow croakers keeping moist and smooth. The amount of spicy salt is also spot-on, with a nice seasoning but not excessive to mask the taste of the fish. Each fish is also of decent size. Highly recommend.

The Steamed Xiao Long Bao with Hairy Crab Roe ($198) has six pieces, with a thin dough holding up the minced pork and a lot of soup. While it takes a bit of chopstick skills to pick up and dip in the Zhejiang vinegar without breaking them, the xiao long bao is really tasty and the hairy crab roe provides additional fragrance and flavours to enjoy. Another must order.

Finishing the meal, we both have Glutinous Rice Balls in Sweet Ginger Soup ($30). The rice balls are silky smooth with a nice bite, and the black sesame fillings are appropriate in sweetness, and the soup has good concentration of ginger note. A good finale especially if you have the hairy crab on the night, to balance the ‘cold’ nature of the crab with ginger.

Service is good, with the staff attentive and courteous. The bill is $1,032 and considering the amount of food and the hairy crab it is reasonable. No wonder the restaurant is so popular and throughout our stay there are people queueing up outside all the while.