House of soul and funk Shake is back, serving an amped up dinner menu and all your favorite cocktails with live music. Sui Tang Li has a new sake pairing menu, and barbecue via delivery from Smokin' Hog.
Dinner, Drinks & A Show
Shake📍 3/F, 46 Maoming Nan Lu, near Jinxian Lu 茂名南路46号3楼, 近进贤路
📞 19121505463
🕒 Tue-Thu & Sun, 6pm-11pm; Fri-Sat, 6pm-midnight
House of funk and soul Shake is back in business!
Shortly after announcing their closure in August, Shake found new partners with Light & Salt, and immediately shared the happy news of their return.
Shake reopened in October with a new look. They've remodeled a little, adding more seating with a good view of the stage. In addition to bringing back a regular showing of weekly live music performances from disco funk to R&B, they’ve also added a handful of new dishes to the menu.
The food is courtesy of Chef Gao Danyi (Bun Cha Cha, Bun Cha Cha Grill), who’s added a slew of new dishes for dinner. Shake’s fan favorites like the carpaccio, pani puri, cheese tofu, and crispy pork knuckle still remain. New dishes include the fresh mussels, a comforting duck ragu, and a winter melon tea dessert. It’s a bit of everything with a lot of Asian influence in the sauces and marinades.
Here’s a sampling of what to order:
Beef Carpaccio (¥118) – Thinly sliced fresh beef with green sauce, mint, celery, radish, and roasted peanuts. Flavors that remind you Southeast Asia.
Cheese Tofu (¥88) – Housemade cheese tofu with honey and roasted peanuts, served with toast. A buttery and creamy cheese to spread.
Oyster (¥98) – A trio of oysters with cucumber granita and cilantro cress. It’s grassy, fresh, and briny all in one bite.
Fennel Salad (¥88) – Shaved fennel with arugula, beetroot, lily bulb, crunchy water chestnut, and mint, doused in a punchy fermented bean curd dressing.
Drunken Spot Prawns (¥188) – Huadiao wine, soy sauce foam, Sichuan green pepper.
Fresh Mussels (¥138) – French mussels served in a luscious sauce made with fermented beans and butter, fortified with shaoxing wine and bits of spicy Sichuan sausage. The golden sauce is divine. Chances are you’ll want another helping of sourdough bread to sop it all up.
Chilled Potato Soup (¥88) - Potato soup served in crispy pani puri shells with a dollop of truffle. A delightful one-bite appetizer.
48-Hour Short Ribs (¥688) – A killer dish of slow-cooked short ribs, glazed with Nanru, a sauce made from fermented bean curd. The fatty cut of meat is served with roasted vegetables, asparagus, and celery root purée.
Roast Baby Chicken (¥198) – A whole roasted chicken with roasted potatoes, baby carrots, and Brussels sprouts. Extremely juicy and very satisfying.
Duck Ragu & Foie Gras (¥158) – A rich duck ragu topped with pan-seared foie gras served with parmesan cauliflower purée and seasonal mushrooms. Hearty and comforting.
Scampi “Risotto” (¥178) – A twist on “risotto” using diced rice cake instead, cooked in a rich seafood based sauce with chorizo and nori powder.
Beef Tongue Soba Noodles (¥98) – Soba noodles drenched in a beefy sauce with diced beef tongue and pickled chilies. Surprisingly light and very enjoyable.
Crispy Pata (¥198) – A signature of Shake inspired by the Filipino dish of the same name. A whole pork hock fried to a crispy served with calamansi soy sauce and bird’s eye chilies. It’s a showstopper.
Winter Melon Tea (¥78) – Winter melon tea flavored shaved ice with coconut sorbet and barley popcorn for lift and texture. A favorite of the desserts, and tastes very nostalgic for me.
As for drinks, it’s mostly cocktails, crafted by bartender Colin Tait (Black Rock). Signature cocktails are ¥98, but there’s also wine, starting at ¥70 by the glass and ¥360 by the bottle.
Live music begins towards the weekend, but Shake sometimes has mid-week shows. For more information, follow them on WeChat (shakeclubsh) for the schedule.
I, for one, am very glad Shake managed to reopen. Since opening in 2016, Shake has become quite the iconic destination for live music, while also churning out great food and drink. It’s a great option for dinner and a show, followed by an ample serving of cocktails. Reservations on performance nights are a must.
📍 The Middle House Residences, 2/F, 366 Shimen Yi Lu, near Nanjing Xi Lu 石门一路366号2层, 近南京西路
📞 32168068
🕒 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30pm-10pm
Sui Tang Li is an excellent Chinese restaurant at The Middle House. They’ve just launched an eight-course sake pairing menu, teaming up with Dassai, a premium sake brand under the Asahi Shuzo company.
Sui Tang Li
Chef Tony Ye has created some modern Chinese dishes to pair with the sakes, featuring dishes like snow crab with sake jelly, abalone with Sichuan green pepper sauce, crispy duck spring rolls, and Longjiang wagyu.
It’s an intimate experience with house sommeliers and staff leading the service, presenting the sakes and sharing a bit of knowledge behind the Japanese rice wine. It’s a good experience if you wish to learn more about sake, or to just appreciate it.
Here’s a play by play:
The meal starts off with a Dassai Sparkling 45, a light and effervescent sake with notes of ripe banana. It’s served with a fantastic cold starter of snow crab leg with sake jelly made with Dassai 45.
Next is abalone with a deliciously aromatic Sichuan peppercorn sauce served with foie gras cooked in Dassai 45, raspberry coulis, and fresh apple.
It’s paired with Dassai Bisui “Elegantly Tipsy”, a silky and creamy sake with a clean, sharp finish.
Mantis prawn tempura with sake jus, paired with Dassai 23 Centrifuge.
A very simple yet extremely tasty crispy duck roll with kimchi and cherry sauce, paired with Dassai 39.
Grilled Longjiang Wagyu with mirin black garlic sauce, matsutake, and asparagus.
The beef is paired with Dassai 45, the most iconic variation of Dassai. It's served warm and cold. Personally, I preferred the warm version.
A comforting bowl of stir-fried orzo pasta with crabmeat, paired with Dassai Mirai Future with Farmers. This sake uses out-of-grade rice or “throwaway rice” produced by farmers (that would otherwise not sell) and utilizes extreme polishing methods to harvest the koji.
Dried fruit yogurt fermented with rice wine.
Paired with Dassai 23 Umeshu, an easy sipping drink with saccharine plum notes.
Li Bai rice cake with Dassai Shochu.
Each of the dishes in the eight-course menu is paired with sake, and is available from now until January 31, 2023. The menu is ¥1,888 per person, minimum four people per booking. Reservations required one day in advance.
📍 Delivery only, available on Eleme, Meituan, Sherpa's, JSS
🕒 10:30am-9pm
💬 WeChat: karinasasmita
Smokin’ Hog is a barbecue delivery brand started by husband and wife team Nacho and Karina. What began as a passion project quickly bloomed into a pretty successful business—the BBQ is hella good!
There are actually two kinds of delivery: Regular delivery via the usual platforms,
including JSS, Sherpa's, Eleme, and Meituan, or by contacting them for chilled barbecue.
Available on regular delivery are all the customary smoked meats of brisket, ribs, pulled pork, but also smoked beef patties made into burgers, sandwiches, quesadillas, tacos, and sides of loaded mac n cheese, fries, and cornbread.
Pulled Pork Sandwich (¥60) (Photo by Rachel Zhou)
Loaded Fries with Brisket (¥65) (Photo by Rachel Zhou)
For chilled barbecue, it’s a separate menu of larger cuts sold by weight, which are delivered vacuum-sealed for easy reheating.
I tried Smokin' Hog's chilled barbecue selection.
Each pack comes with reheating methods, either in the oven or in a water bath.
Brisket (¥400/1kg) – The cut to rule all cuts. This gorgeous slab of USDA grain-fed brisket is crusted with a house blend of spices and smoked for 16 hours. I reheated it in the oven at higher temperatures than what was suggested due to impatience and hunger, and it still came out perfectly moist and juicy.
The brisket is a fatty cut, and if you haven’t had it before, note that you’ll need quite a bit of sides to accompany this rich cut. It’s a lot of heavy meat to handle on its own. Very much worth trying.
Smoked Beef Rib (¥160/bone) – Australian grain-fed short rib smoked for nine hours. Less fatty than the brisket, I highly recommend the beef rib if you’re looking for a solo feast. It’s the perfect portion for one person, and suitable for those who don’t like too much marble in your meat. This I reheated in the oven, too.
Smoked Beef Barbacoa (¥120/300g) – Smoked USDA Oyster Blade with a blend of Mexican spices. I reheated this in a water bath. It was delicious on its own, but I was already on meat overload, so I added it to pasta and that worked perfectly.
To order the chilled menu items, add Karina on WeChat below.
For the regular barbecue and sandwiches, just search for Smokin' Hog on the delivery platforms.
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