Ranajit Dam

SHENZHEN techies have it pretty good, at least food-wise. Now, I’m not referring here to the high-tech professionals working in the Nanshan Hi-tech Park — although I am sure they have no shortage of options when it comes to lunch — but I’m instead talking specifically about those lucky techies working in and around the Tian’an Cyber Park in Futian District’s Chegongmiao area. Their choices range from some excellent Macao cuisine (in the form of the Macao Portugal Street restaurant) to more everyday Hunan cuisine served in a number of shops, with fast-food restaurants like Miandianwang and Yonghe Dawang also included.

Shanglou Restaurant is another of these innumerable options. When we visited the restaurant earlier this week, we had no idea it was a Hunan restaurant; our sources (the Internet included) had assured us it was a fusion restaurant serving a mix of Shanghai and Cantonese cuisines. So we were most surprised to see the word xiangcai (Hunan cuisine) at the entrance, and the fact was soon confirmed by a waitress. Oh no, not another Hunan restaurant, I mentally moaned, surely there isn’t much to review in a Hunan restaurant, is there?

That’s where I was wrong: Shanglou could be called many things, but it certainly can’t be called a run-of-the-mill Hunan restaurant. Yes, the menu offers a large number of Hunan staples including my beloved youxian xianggan, which is basically xianggan, a cousin (or second cousin) of tofu cooked with meat and peppers. But all in all, Shanglou is more adventurous in its cooking than most Hunan restaurants in the city, and therein lies the reason why it deserves a visit.

First impressions are, however, rather discouraging. In decor and design the restaurant resembles a converted nightclub; as you walk through the small, oddly shaped entrance, you’re almost waiting to hear the metal detector alarm going off. Shanglou is also far too dark even during lunchtime, so make sure you sit at a table near the window to enjoy what little daylight the restaurant allows. The only difference between Shanglou and a nightclub, then, is the absence of ear-splitting, thumping music, but the restaurant does pipe Cantopop through the speakers, which can be even more irritating. Also, the tables there are placed too close to each other, so you probably could catch parts of conversations from nearby tables.

However, the food is certainly Shanglou’s stronger suit. My lunch companions, who don’t have the kind of culinary inhibitions that I possess, ordered a dish of stewed pig feet (38 yuan, US$5), and that was the first dish to arrive. There are many things I do eat, but certain parts of animals are not among them; definitely not entrails, and not feet either. But my companions found it “quite good,” and we’ll leave it at that.

My favorite dish was the hot shrimp barbecue (48 yuan), which involved a large number of grilled shrimp served with a paste that combined peppers, preserved black bean and celery. Continuing on with seafood, there was also a steamed fish of unknown variety served in a spicy (naturally, Hunan restaurant and all, you know) and sour concoction with a hint of tomato (38 yuan). In place of the youxian xianggan, which I normally order at every Hunan restaurant I visit, I opted for the steamed tofu with soy and peppers, which was also fairly impressive. We rounded off the meal with a “hodgepodge” with combined meatballs with mushrooms and other assorted ingredients.

The menu, while in English, is not 100 percent understandable, but despite that, the restaurant merits a visit and is a worthy addition to the Cyber Park area. If I had known techies had it this good, I would have certainly chosen working in software instead of journalism.