There are a lot Shanghainese restaurants in Richmond. For the great majority of them, each of the restaurants are very good. A few really good ones comes to mind:

• Shanghai River
• Top Shanghai
• Chen’s Shanghai
• No 1 Shanghai

Here is one more that is worthy to be considered as one of the best Shanghainese restaurant in Richmond.

Suhang Restaurant had flown under our radar all these while. We were not even aware of its existence … never heard of it because it was not discussed on the internet.

Moreover, their location is less than ideal. It is on Ackroyd Road in the little strip mall where Nandos is. For most people who drives along Ackroyd, the view of Suhang from the road is not apparent. It is partly covered by the jutting building next door and partly by Nandos.

We would not have known about it until Steven told us about it. Remember Steven? He was the foodie reader who wrote us a 4-page recommendation of Vietnamese Cuisine. He was the one who led us to discover Thien Kim, the pho place where we had “4 types of Vietnamese Noodle Soup, none of which is Pho“.

Apparently Suhang had been opened for two years already.

The moment we walked into Suhang, we were already impressed. The restaurant was packed that night. Apparently it is popular. It is an upscale restaurant, not upscale-upscale but pretty fancy. It is bright and clean. The service is really good, staffed by experienced captains.

Based on Steven’s enthusiastic and detailed description of Suhang and what we see the moment we walked on, the first thing that popped into my mind is “hidden gem”. This looked so promising.

Suanne and I made arrangements to meet up with Steven and Jaime. Steven told us that Suhang is named after two cities outside of Shanghai. I can’t remember the exact name but for those of you who can read Chinese, you will probably know which two cities.

On to the food.

Steven and Jaime had to pre-order this item. We are a bit confused with this name but you know how it is with some translations. On one hand Steven refers this to as the 8-Treasure Duck but when we look at the menu it seems to read … something else. Oh well. whatever it is called, it looked absolutely delicious.

They serve this whole and will cut it up in your presence. We could see a little steam released when it was cut open.

They thoughtfully cut up only half the duck. They said that they will cut the other half when we are about to eat it. They wanted to make sure it is all moist and warm.

That is a whole duck. No bones at all. Instead, it is stuffed with “treasures” like sticky rice, chestnuts, ginko nuts, chinese sausage, mushrooms … and others. It was delicious. Strange thing is that there are not much duck meat in this. We wondered what became of the duck meat.

Suhang has several other pre-order dishes like Mud Baked Chicken Hangzhou Style. That is one item we will want to try next time we are here. It used to be referred to as “Beggar Chicken”.

All Shanghainese restaurant is judged by their Xiao Long Bao (translated as mini bun in steaming basket).

Normally Xiao Long Bao is made with pork but we got the one that is a bit fancier.

This is called “Hai Fan” Xiao Long Bao which is made with crab paste. Oh man! This is awesome … the juice is so rich. We just can’t find fault with this Xiao Long Bao. Reaaaaally nice!

Next up is called “Wo Ba” which is basically crispy rice. They serve the crispy rice separate from the soup. They are meant to be eaten together but separating them ensures that the crispy rice does not turn all soggy and soft.

Some people eat this differently. Some will pour soup into the crispy rice bowl but Jaime and Steven said that we should just dunk the crispy rice into our individual bowl of soup.

The soup is thick with a mild flavour. They can prepare the soup with several ingredients but the one we got was sea cucumber. Besides the sea cucumber, we also had bamboo shoots, mushrooms and water chestnut in it. This dish is about contrasting texture and balanced mild flavours.

Steven saved the best for last. He made sure that this came as the last course as it is very very super duper rich.

It is crab fried in salted egg yolk. The name makes you cringe doesn’t it? LOL!

This reminds me of what Chua Lam said. Chua Lam is a well known food critic and columnist based in Hongkong. His TV shows are in Cantonese but there is one which is done in English. In that particular English show he said … “Of course. Cholesterol is the best of all the food. Without cholesterol you can throw everything away. It is not good anymore”. If you are interested, here is the youtube where he uttered these words.

This crab really blew me away. It is deep fried until that the shell is super crispy. You could actually eat with the shells on the most part.

It is coated with rich salted yolk. You really need to throw away all decorum and devour this with your hands. You know what I enjoyed most? Sucking and gnawing at the cholesterol laden yolk coating.

I am a happy man.

Dessert’s next.

Some of you may have eaten this but this is the first time I had this. And this is equally great. Just $12, this is called Fried Sweetened Dumplings with Red Bean Paste.

It looks like buns isn’t it? It is NOT. It is actually made with egg white. So, this sort of balanced with the super rich salted egg yolk crab we just had. Makes me feel healthier. LOL!

It is sprinkled with some pink sugar. There is a hard to spell name for this sugar … osthemus? I know the spelling is wrong but when I see the word I’ll know.

We all love this lightly sweet dessert with a delightfully soft egg white. I like that it is served hot which shows that it is freshly made.

This is a must order item.

The restaurant served us complementary coconut jelly. It has a top layer made of coconut milk. While this is good, it really pales in comparison with what we had.

We had a great time. Steven and Jaime were great company and very experienced foodies. You know, Suanne and I always have rice with Chinese food but Steven and Jaime are one of those people who go for the best and forgo the rice.

We stayed quite a long time. The dinner started at 6PM and we left when they were starting to clean up for the day. So, yeah … we had a most enjoyable time talking about food … over food. I don’t even know how much this dinner costs because Steven insisted on buying (xie xie!).

Suanne and I categorize this restaurant as a “good find” simply because we were not aware of their existence until now. Suhang does give the other more famous Shanghainese restaurant a run for the money.

The food in Suhang is both expensive and cheap. You need to know what to order. They serve expensive, fancy dishes and also some simpler dishes. So it has everything for everyone.

Below are their set menu. Ignore that “for tow” typo … good Chinese restaurants must have bad English in their menu. LOL!