3 New Restaurants: Sip & Slurp, Modern Oden, Le Bistrot de 鸟啸

Three new restaurants around town. Yunnan staple Slurp opens another casual eatery on Yanping Lu with wine, there's an oden bar in the lane across The Cannery, and a French-Japanese bistro in Yongping Li.

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Yunnan

Slurp & Sip

Address: No. 11, 98 Yanping Lu, near Wuding Lu 延平路98号-11临, 近武定路
Tel: [phone]
Hours: 11am-midnight

Slurp & Sip is a fast-casual eatery on Yanping Lu, a sister restaurant of Yunnan staple Slurp. At night, it winds down into a wine bar, mostly serving natural wines.

They have some excellent lunch sets. A rice noodle set (¥68) comes with a choice of dry or soup noodles (four each to choose from), one side dish, and one soft drink; and a rice set (¥78) comes with one rice dish, one side, and one soft drink. It's plenty for lunch. And it comes out piping hot real quick, despite the rush hour.

Rice noodles soup with sour & spicy minced pork sauce. Addictively sour, mildly spicy.

Side dish of grilled Yunnanese tofu served with a dry spice mix to dip. Thin crisp skin and semi-firm tofu.

Fried fresh goat cheese (¥32), served with rose jam. (I prefer the dry spice mix.) 

Dinner is a full a la carte menu of Yunnan dishes, including whole fish in a spicy-limey chili sauce (¥78), hand-shredded lemon chicken (¥58), grilled pork neck (¥62),  and more. 

Hand-shredded lemon chicken (¥58)

Slurp has always been consistently good, and it's no surprise that this location is doing very well.

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Japanese

Modern Oden 三角关夕

Address: No. 107-1, 1088 Yuyuan Lu, near Jiangsu Lu 愚园路1088弄48号107-1室, 近江苏路
Tel: [phone]
Hours: 11am-10pm

Modern Oden is a Japanese restaurant that specializes in oden and omusubi, located in the lane across from The Cannery. 

Oden is a Japanese stew, usually with dashi as the base. Skewers, meat, and veg are boiled in the soup. It's a nabemono, a hot pot style of dish. Omusubi (or onigiri) are rice balls, usually shaped into triangles, toppings pressed or mixed into the center or around.

Omusubi are an inexpensive meal, it's mostly rice and fills you up. They've gotten creative with the rice balls (starting from ¥28), topping them with truffles, parma ham, and cheese. There are more traditional ones, topped with mentaiko and uni.

Niu Niu Oden (¥168)

As for the oden, there are sets from ¥78, or you can customize your own as you would at a hot pot restaurant. The broth is mild and clean, flavored with pork bones and dashi. Toppings run the gamut from shaved beef, fish cakes, tofu, an assortment of skewers, and vegetables. There are a couple a la carte dishes as well.

The dipping sauces to go with your oden. 

Mentaiko Udon (¥58) - Thick ribbons of noodles coated in creamy mentaiko and topped with sesame seeds and a drizzle of chili oil. Very satisfying.

Truffle Daikon (¥38) - One of their signatures, a log of daikon coated in creamy truffle sauce. It's a bit lackluster, more for show.

Overall, it's a good, inexpensive lunch spot if you live/work in the area. Service is friendly. 

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French-Japanese

Le Bistrot de 鸟啸 (Niao Xiao)

Address: 108, Bldg 2, 199 Hengshan Lu, near Yongjia Lu 衡山路199号2号楼1楼108室, 近永嘉路
Tel: [phone]
Hours: 5:30pm-1am

Le Bistrot de 鸟啸 by MIG is a French-Japanese restaurant and wine bar in the space formerly STYX in Yongping Li. The name, 鸟啸 (pronounced niao xiao) is perhaps a play on the word 烧鸟 (shao niao), which means yakitori. And that's exactly what's on the menu—Japanese skewers, but with some French entrées.

It's by the same restaurant group behind Miss Ali, Le Verre a Vin, Le Vin, Sushi Takumi, and 鸟啸 (two other locations sans the French spin).

The space resembles a bistrot more than yakitori, unless you're sitting by the grill counter. It's cozy. Mostly tables for two or four.

Wines by the bottle

It's not so much French-Japanese fusion as it is two different menus in one—French entrées of rabbit and duck confit alongside yakitori (from ¥13/skewer). There are a couple of fusion-y dishes like the chicken liver with sabayon sauce, but from my experience, the French dishes fared better. 

Here's what to expect:

Table bread, baguette and a version of qiangbing (羌饼), a type of scallion flatbread with sesame seeds.

Complimentary snacks to go with the bread; rotates every evening.

Steak Tartare (¥88) with chef sauce - A creamy, cheesy, spicy sauce over tartare. It's not my favorite, as the sauce overpowers the flavor of the meat.

Ragout de Mouton (¥158) - This lamb stew might not look pretty, but it was the highlight of the meal. Tender lamb stewed in a rich sauce with Brussels sprouts and potatoes. It's hearty and tasty.

Quenelles of Pike (¥118) with lobster sauce - A typical French dish. The consistency of the quenelles is nice, but the flavor was a touch too sweet for me. 

Chicken Liver with Sabayon Sauce (¥15) - I get the sweet-savory idea, but this felt like fat-on-fat. Chicken liver is pretty rich and generally you'd want some citrus to cut through it.

Rice Cake (¥20) - This was delicious. Rice cake with a crispy layer of fried batter over it and a sweet teriyaki sauce.

Squash with Mentaiko (¥18) - An enjoyable staple skewer.

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