Shanghai Tide

FBM would not be FBM without gluttony, and so it was one chilly Friday night we gathered for all you can eat hot pot with all you can drink Bud.  For $26, people. 

After a *ahem* short wait for a table because, uh… this ding dong (me) was late and they gave away our table (we were only like 5 or 10 minutes late!), we were finally seated and thus began the hot pot night! 

My bowl with soy sauce, fresh garlic, cilantro (a LOT of cilantro!), sesame oil, satay sauce… a mish mash of things. 

Our broth, separated into spicy and not spicy.  I’m told the spicy was pretty viciously spicy.  I didn’t touch it at all.  Oh yeah – this is communal, the whole table shares. 

There was a huge language barrier with ordering, so this is sort of but not really what we ordered for our first plate –

the second plate – thin slices of beef, pork, and lamb.  This is where I make a negative comment: the lamb was super gamey, and once dunked into the broth, flavored the broth pretty strongly with lamb taste.  I never order lamb when I have hot pot for this reason – if it’s bad, it ruins all the broth!  Another reason to frown upon communal pots!  😛

Oh, did I mention, Shanghai Tide is also all-you-can-eat small plates/dim sum?  There’s a not-inconsiderable list from which to choose.  These are xiao long bao, or soup dumplings that I for some reason did not photograph a cross section.  The best?  No, not by a long shot, but considering they’re basically free, not bad at all! 

They also have a fried version, with thicker skin/breading, that has a slightly crispy bottom.  These weren’t bad, but I think TC liked them a lot more than I did, as he proceeded to order and eat what, another two orders?!  Nice!!! 

Our next platter of meat. 

…with clams. 

A rare photograph of the Beer Boor drinking… Bud.  For shame!  Good thing we didn’t name you the Beer Snob. 

Our destroyed platter. 

Right now, I cannot for the life of me remember what, but we kept trying to order one thing – even pointing to it on the menu – and kept getting liver instead.  We’ll pass, thank you very much! 

…and the beer.  We had seven people, and the two ladies opted out of drinking beer.  So… among five guys, they created this tower of beer.  True and funny story?  I was waiting for it to get really, really big before I took a picture.  Chris was taking pictures of it progressively… I finally decided to take the above pic, though we were by no means done drinking. 

Five seconds later, I captured this one.

…and then this one.  Saddddddd.  Then a homeless man smoking three cigarettes at a time came in to talk to us and all hell broke loose (rather, we decided it was high time to leave). 

Did I mention it was $26/person, tax and tip included, for all of the above?  I didn’t even take photos of all the plates of cooked food that came our way, but we were pretty damn stuffed when all was said and done.  Yum. 

Yvo says: While it’s true that I still had my issues with a communal pot, the fact is, you pay $26 and food just keeps coming to your table (as you order it, of course).  You can’t really go wrong with that concept, can you?  The dim sum is nothing to get excited about- it fills you up and is tasty enough- and the beer is Bud and nothing else- but it’s $26 and suitably good.  You may get some interesting characters and have some communication road blocks (um, what could we possibly have said that made her think we wanted liver, twice?)… but you’ll have a good time with friends and some food to warm you to your toes.  Winter’s coming.  🙂
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