Wagas

Nicoise salad.  Fresh crispy greens, and a nice touch of sun-dried tomatoes.  Too bad the tuna was a tin variety.

Ginger lemon tea (RMB32).  A very welcoming treat for the cold winter day.

Pasta of the day (RMB46) was cream of smoked salmon and asparagus.  Simple but tasty.

Fusilli chorizo (RMB49).  Another simple dish which I am thinking about making at home.  I need to find out where to get chorizo.

Last but not least, blueberry cheese cake (RMB20).
Reasonable prices and simple great tastes were all we needed.  Free wifi was another bonus!

Wagas (many branches across town)
265 Jiaozhou Rd. (nr. Xinzha Rd.), Shanghai.  Tel: 6272-0358

Issimo

Dinner at Issimo. The place was packed out! Admittedly we did not book but to be given seats at the bar when there were empty tables (and we actually waited for about 45 mins) was just off.

Antipasto.  Good quality meat but I thought it's cheeky to have half of it as mortadella.
Deep fried calamari.  Tasty and dainty batter and it didn't feel too heavy as a result.

House salad.  Nothing to call home about.

Grilled sirloin.  Big and juicy and grilled to perfection.

Pizza prosciutto.  Simple but yummy.  Loved the medium-thin crust.  It was just doughy enough and not too crunchy.

A pasta dish with truffle.  It was very rich and full of creamy truffle flavour but there didn't seem to be any pasta?  Very odd.

Profiteroles at the back, homemade rum ice cream and some kind of pistachio cream.  Both were so good that we stuffed it all in despite our already-full tummies.
Issimo
2/F, Jia Shanghai, 931 Nanjing Rd. West, nr. Taixing Rd., Shanghai. Tel: 3302-4997

Moon's Steakhouse

Another Xintiandi eatery in one week.  We know not to expect too much from places in Xintiandi but we figured Moon Steak could not be too bad as it had survived all these years.  Well my heart sunk when I saw the soup.  It was the kind I fear most: cafeteria cream of whatever soup straight from a can. The smell was enough to turn me off.

Fortunately the steak redeemed the meal.  The hot grill did wonders in sealing the meat and it was extremely juicy and tender, even at medium-well.  The only slight problem was that we got crisps when I was expecting chips.

My set lunch was about RMB120, which was good value.  I did notice prices for a la carte were very expensive.  I felt that if I was to pay RMB 400 for a steak I could go to a nicer venue.

Moon's Steakhouse
1/F, South Block Xintiandi, 123 Xingye Rd., Shanghai.  Tel: 6336-5683

Koyama

Apparently Koyama was so successful and packed they had to open up Shinmachi.  Is this city really that short of good Japanese restaurant?  Why do we need two more mediocre places?

Fatty toro rolls(RMB80).  It was probably one of the better dishes on that day.  Still the fish had that supermarket sushi taste to it:  rice was stone-cold and tasteless, somewhat soggy seaweed, and nondescript fish.  For what they were charging I thought it was expensive.

Udon set(RMB68).  At least this was edible and good value.  The broth was actually rather nice and so were the fixings.  The noodles were a little too soggy and overcooked though.

Chirashi set(RMB88).  I guess you get what you pay for.  Fish was rather bland it was difficult to tell them apart.

Some kind of store-bought ice cream as dessert.

Koyama 小山日本料理
3?F, South Block Xintiandi, No. 6, Lane 123 Xingye Rd., Shanghai.  Tel: 5382-1125

Lung Ja Seafood

Our favourite spot at Hua Hin Night Market.  Seafood seemed fresh and selection was interesting and plenty.  With a hot BBQ grill right in front of the restaurant we could see our dinner cooked in front of us.  It's big part of the fun to eat at the Night Market!

BBQ catch of the day.  Loved the meaty and firm white fish, although it seemed to be a little to the dry side.   The dip was so out of this world it more than made up for it.

BBQ king prawn.  It makes my mouth water just looking at the picture.  Prawns were juicy and sweet, we didn't need to use any dipping sauce.


Fried rice.  I always love Thai fried rice and this one was no exception.

Green curry chicken.  Simply wonderful.

Black pepper squid.  We thought we were getting the deep fried salt and pepper version like this one.  We were rather disappointed and to be honest this was not very good at all.  It was basically just soya sauce and a bit of green peppercorns.

Seafood salad.  It wasn't the best.  The noodles were all stuck together because there was not enough dressing.  It was pretty bland as a result and disappointing.

A very long fish!  They told us it's for fish stock mostly.

Lung Ja Seafood
Dechanuchit Rd., Hua Hin, Prachuap Khirikhan, 77110 Thailand.

Asara Villa and Suite

A couple Thai dishes we tried at the hotel restaurant Kampu by Design.  The seafood salad was much better than the pad Thai, which was way too sweet.  We were very hungry still as they were probably the smallest Thai portions possible.  We prefer the no-fuss Thai food in big cheerful plates.


Kampu by Design
Asara Villa and Suite, 53 Hua Hin Soi 5, Prachuab Kirlkhan 77110 Thailand.  Tel: +66 3254-7555

Gyu Jin

Gyu Jin created quite a big stir in Hong Kong because of its good value and great food.  When we had found out about it's Shanghai branch we were there in no time.

The buffet spread was not as impressive as the spread in Hong Kong.  There were vegetables, noodles, tofu, fish cakes, fried rice and so on.  There were plenty and it was definitely quality over quality.

There were a number of choices of beef.  This is the lean beef option (RMB48/person).  Beef was a bit hard but I guess that's normal for lean beef.

The special grade hotpot beef (RMB58/person) was noticeably nicer in texture once it's cooked.

Our soup bases: plain and sukiyaki.  We could also choose from kimchi and Szechuan hot and spicy.  We preferred the plain one as there was just too much MSG in the sukiyaki one.

And there was ice cream for dessert it's not Haagen Dazs.

Gyu Jin
In Point, 169 Wu Jiang Rd. (nr. TaiXing Rd.), Shanghai.  Tel: 6218-5171

Chao Lay, part 2

Our second meal in Chao Lay.  We got more child-friendly dishes this time.  The pineapple rice was a success!  Our kids loved it.

The must-have tom yum.

Stir-fried crab with curry sauce.  It was finger-licking good!

Sweet and sour chicken with cashew nuts.  It's cooked the same way as sweat and sour pork, which the chicken was deep fried first.  Great taste and texture, a little artery clogging tough.

Chao Lay Restaurant
15 Naresdamri Rd., Hua Hin, Thailand.  Tel: 0-3251-3436

Chao Lay, part 1

We walked around Hua Hin a little to search of a new dinner option but decided to go back to our old favourite Chao Lay once again.

Our tom yum was as good as usual, while the prawn rolls were a little boring in terms of flavour.

Prawn cakes had a nice texture and quite a lot of prawns.

We asked for no chili for our fish dish because of the kids.  Unfortunately once the chili was gone there was not much flavour left to the dish.

At least our green chicken curry had enough punch, and there was plenty of chicken too.

BBQ tiger prawns.  Fresh seafood is simply the best!  And the dip was perfect with prawns.  I would fly back to Thailand just for those!

Chao Lay Restaurant
15 Naresdamri Rd., Hua Hin, Thailand.  Tel: 0-3251-3436

Issimo

Sunday brunch (RMB288/person) at Issimo was not a typical buffet.  At first we were a little disappointed but it was quickly apparent that the waitresses were trained to feed us well.  There were four starters for the day: tuna and chickpea salad, potato and baby octopus salad, sliced pork with arugula and eggplant.  My favourite had to be the eggplant!  I don't usually like eggplant but the zingy dressing made all the difference.

Two or three varieties of bruschetta was also served with our starters.

 Fried mozzarella.

For primo we had homemade ravioli and a bean stew.  Both extremely yummi.

Risotto was also on the list.

There were three choices for secondo.  My husband went for a pork loin with wine sauce.

I ried out fish grilled in basil and vinaigrette sauce.  Both were fairly nice but did not impress like the appetizers.

The dessert spread was spectacular.

Our selection.  Everything was excellent!

Issimo
2/F, 931 Nanijing Rd. West (nr.Taixing Rd.), Shanghai.  Tel: 3302-4997