That is no surprise it was Liu’s first and more formative experience in the sushi world. And Liu’s style is, as his wife freely admits, heavily influenced by Oyama. the tuna in someplace like Sushi Yano, it’s perhaps more instructive to talk about style. So instead of splitting hairs over the specific cuts of fish and the relative quality of the tuna at Hulu vs. As just one example, there is a hierarchy among fish suppliers about who gets access to the best Japanese fish, and that is a deep and opaque world of guanxi, money and status one can not just show up in Shanghai and purchase top-tier tuna out of a catalogue. That’s it, that’s all, that’s what they have room for.įirst Impressions: It’s exceedingly hard to review or even write about sushi for someone who has not spent years studying the topic and is not familiar with all the in’s and out’s of making sushi in Shanghai. It’s been open a month, with a strict seating schedule: six people at six pm, and then six more people at eight pm. Pirata was originally supposed to be a combination of a Cuban sandwich bar and Ling’s Spanish tapas, but when Ling and Liu found out they were pregnant, they decided that there is no time like the present, and so they turned a sliver of space in the back of Pirata into a six-seat sushi house. Liu is the husband of Ling Huang, the owner and chef of Pirata, which recently opened in Columbia Circle. Hulu is a pocket-size addition to Shanghai’s downtown sushi options from Liu-san, a Jiangxi native who spent seven years working at Sushi Oyama, one of the city’s more well-known and well-regarded fancy sushi houses. Pull out a piece of white paper to sketch these out at home. Quick Take:A tiny omakase sushi-ya from a longtime Oyama chef There’s not a second restaurant in Shanghai like it. There’s nothing subtle or reserved about it. Dessert was a coconut filled with Japanese rice in coconut milk and mango. The rest was all very nice, if very fried, including tempura broccolini sprinkled with aged parmesan and given a powerful kimchi dressing, black cod tempura in a flattened nest of fried potato, with a yuzu and egg emulsion for dipping, and the gyu-don beef bowl, made with M7 wagyu beef, shiitake mushrooms and pickled onions. It’s clearly the hit single in this album.Īsian pear and avocado salad, radish, tofu dressing, 118rmbīeef gyudon, slow cooked Wagyu beef, steamed rice, shiitake mushroom, pickled onion, for two people to share, 248rmb It’s crispy, it’s soft, it’s hot, it’s cold, it’s spicy, it’s cooling – it does a lot, this temaco thing. Right away, the food was impressive, with thin slices of cured sea bass wrapped around crunchy fried potato, and then a beautiful plate of homemade pickles, including a tight head of cabbage kimchi, a two-tone watermelon pickle, and cucumber.Ĭured seabass roll, myoga & shiso salad, crispy potato, 118rmbīroccoli tempura, kimchi dressing & aged Parmesan, 88rmbĪfter that, the highlight was the temaco, which is… which is… a made up word? Whatever the language, it’s a lovely, heretical play on Japanese food that involves deep-frying the seaweed in a mold to give it a taco shape, and then filling it with sushi rice and marinated tuna, and daubing avocado puree and planting a small garden of sprouts on top. None of the sections has more than four items in it, except for “Smaller”. Pitts sent us out a sampling of the menu, which is fairly short and divided into a few main sections: Smaller (plates), Temaco, Tempura, Hibachi Grill, and Inspired by the Classics. Instead, the Japanese touches come in the tableware, much of which comes from Japan, in things like a Highball list (seven varieties, from Jameson, cranberry and yuzu soda to Glenlivet 12 Year, beetroot, soda water and plum bitters), and of course, in the main menu.įirst Impressions: This is nice. It’s not a brushed-plaster, white-walled and blond wood room, though it does have a light touch to it all, and fairly dramatic views of the bend in the Huangpu River and a section of the back Bund. The setting has very little to do with Japan, and that’s part of the appeal. “Inspired” because, despite having a very Japanese kitchen, with the bincho-tan charcoal grill and special tempura fryers, this was an idea conceived of and executed by a couple of very not Japanese chefs: Jason Atherton (the idea, originally here) and Christopher Pitts (the execution). Rather, it’s “inspired by” Japanese izakayas. This one is shaped like a Japanese restaurant, but that’d be a bit misleading. What It Is: The final piece in the three-piece restaurant puzzle at Shanghai EDITION. Quick Take:“Japanese”-not-Japanese restaurant from Jason Atherton at the Shanghai EDITION Hotel
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