Hong Kong - Best Shanghainese in HK :-)

[klyeoh]

Consistently high standards maintained for all dishes we had this evening:
- Sugar-snap peas with diced Jinhua ham
- Crisp-fried eels with vinegar & ginger strips
- Tea-smoked eggs
- Sweet shrimps
- Batter-fried croaker fish
- Dong po pork with steamed buns

Address details
=============
Shanghai Fraternity Association 上海總會
1-3/F, South China Building
1 Wyndham Street, Central
Hong Kong
Tel: [phone]

[M_Gomez]

This place brings back so many nice memories for me, klyeoh. Thanks for sharing!

[Charles Yu]

Some more great tasting dishes from Shanghai Fraternity Association
- Minced Shanghainese veggie appetizer
- Oil poached river shrimps
- A famous fish dish whose name eluded me
- pot-sticker pork buns that's filled with broth

Klyeoh: Guess SFA should give us both VIP membership for providing all these free PR work!! Ha!

[FourSeasons]

The meal in our last chowmeet this year at Hanzhou was better though...

[Charles Yu]

Agree!!! Best chowmeet ever!!! Food and company!!

[M_Gomez]

Charles, Four Seasons - Are you both talking about Hangzhou restaurant in Johnston Plaza in Wanchai? It's a nice restaurant but I liked Shanghai Fraternity Club better, altrhough the catch is that one needs to be a member of Shanghai Fraternity Club or be brought there by a member of the club. I'm lucky because my brother-in-law here is a member and he would only entertain at the club, and other members are mostly HKers of Shanghainese descent, so the food here in far more authentic than all other "Shanghainese" restaurants in HK like Ye Shanghai (Michelin-rated, if I'm not wrong?). Please don't mention Shanghai Garden of the Maxim's Group in Hutchison House - that place is not authentic at all!

[akated]

"... altrhough the catch is that one needs to be a member of Shanghai Fraternity Club or be brought there by a member of the club..."

aw man! tell me this is not true... bums me out when i see photos of all that great food, only to find out that i won't have the chance to try it =(

[Charles Yu]

Talk about bummer!!!
- The Kiangsu, Chekiang & Shanghai Resident (HK) Association restaurant offers food that even bested those from Shanghai Fraternity!!!
- One of the best place for Cantonese food also has nothing to do with Michelin stars!! Its in the membership dining room of the General Chamber of Commerce in Central! The free range crispy skin chicken, which took over a couple of days to prepare, is to die for and easily outshines similar rendition from the Fu Sing, Lei Garden. Manor, Yung Kee.....of this world....etc.
- The Kowloon Tong Landlord Association, another membership place, does seafood dishes so well, especially steamed whole fish, Michelin inspectors don't know what they are missing!!! Ha!
- Lastly, both Chinese and Western food of the HK Jockey club can be amazing too! Scary, when one looks around and find everyone drinking either Chateau Ausone, Latour or Petrus!!!

[klyeoh]

Like in Japan, many of HK's best chefs work in members-only club restaurants which would not be open to the Michelin inspectors, and hence would never be included in a Michelin guide.

In Tokyo, I'd been to several "ichigen-san okotowari" (invitation-only) eateries, courtesy of local Japanese friends/colleagues, which served stupendous food - but none of these would ever be featured in the Michelin Tokyo guide. Ditto the HK clubs - by the way, Re: the Kiangsu, Chekiang & Shanghai Resident (HK) Association (香港蘇浙滬同鄉會餐廳) does pack quite a punch in its cuisine, but I'd not been back there since 2006/2007 thereabouts, and couldn't quite remember how its food tastes like anymore.

But I did remember than Ye Shanghai's food really bowled me over when I dined there in 2009 - I walked in there after having tried some of Shanghai's best restaurants in the preceding years. But HK-style of Shanghainese cuisine is subtle & sophisticated, unlike the robustness of its Mainland cousin. In HK, Chinese food is NOT the assertive sweet, sour, salty or bitter dimensions, but various levels of "umami" where subtlety is the key. What one gets at the Shanghai Fraternity Association is an example of that - it's vastly different from what one may regard as the "authentic" versions one will get in Shanghai itself.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/554028

[Charles Yu]

Kiangsu, Chekiang & Shanghai Resident (HK) Association (香港蘇浙滬同鄉會餐廳) indeed has amazing food. Even a plain serving of Shanghainese noodles with scallions and dried shrimps can be so addictive! However, for some unknown reason, the wait for the food to arrive takes a long time??!!

[klyeoh]

akated, I sometimes debate on whether to include write-ups of "members-only" eating establishments. But I think it's useful to highlight good food & talented chefs wherever they exist - many of these places would not get a mention in commercialised publications like the Michelin Red Guide or Tatler's Best Restaurants in HK.

In a "small" place like HK, you're bound to know someone, or someone who knows someone who's a member of that particular club - and since getting together to eat out is one of the most popular activities in food-mad HK, your chances of getting to eat at one of these clubs are very good indeed.

[akated]

hehe. in that case i'd like to request to join you big boys when there are chowmeets! lol!

[FourSeasons]

@Gomez: Yes, that is the same Hanzhou where we had our last chow meet in March this year. And the chow meet 3-4 years ago at Shanghai Fraternity Club, Charles' relative who was a member booked the table for us. Based on those two meals, I have a complete different experience from you. Ye Shanghai at Pacific Mall is not good at all but I think the one that gets the star from Michelin is in Kowloon which I had never been.

[Charles Yu]

Incredible how many delicious dishes Shanghai Fraternity Association offers!!
When we had our chowmeet there on 2009, apart from the Tea-Smoked eggs, every dishes we had were different from yours!!! Amazing!!
Some of the dishes include:
- Drunken Pigeon
- Chinese crystal ham,
- Weird tasting chicken
- Steamed Chinese ham with honey
- Sole filet with Chinese wine and wood fungus
- Stirred fry crab with bean sauce........