187 Orchard Street
As far as I’m concerned, any place that boasts excellent hot and sour soup is worth visiting and Shang, which I tried out during restaurant week, serves up a spectacular version. While it’s easy to imagine the dissent among local foodies (“There’s nothing here that you can’t get for a fraction of the price in Chinatown!!” they’ll whine) but hey, this soup is really, really excellent and I have to say that I also loved the thick Cantonese Wok Fried Pearl Noodles – both of which were on the tasting menu.
We were less taken with the other items on the menu. The sushi was good, but not amazing, and the shrimp dumplings were a tad bland. For cocktails, I recommend the Diablo for its spicy tequila kick, though it was a touch too sweet.
The ambiance is similar to that of fancy dark hotel, which is not quite my thing, but the staff was not snotty, as one might expect, but really friendly and seemed happy to have us – and I’d be more than happy to return for another bowl of that hot and sour soup.
But what do you think?