SQ A380 Economy to Shanghai

[schumaster]

Excellent report and pics as usual, yflyer!

[mr_botak]

Good report - thanks. Not much has changed on the A380 upper deck since I was last there, which is quite a while now. I always thought row 71 has the advantage that no one has any reason to walk past which minimises disturbance greatly.

[yflyer]

The morning after we arrived in Shanghai, Mrs yflyer coaxed me out of bed and showed me an address on a map.

“This is where we are going for breakfast today. Actually, two breakfasts.”

She meant that literally: One breakfast immediately after the other, first at Jiajia Xiao Long Bao, then we would cross the street to Yang’s Fry Dumpling…

“Two quintessential Shanghainese foods that happen to be opposite one another – Two for the price of one taxi fare.”

I couldn’t argue when she put it that way, although I had my doubts about whether my gastro-intestinal tract appreciated that logic…

The locals in Shanghai take their Xiao Long Bao, or soup dumplings very seriously. Jiajia Xiao Long Bao is one of those places who seem to have got their dumpling formula right, and as a result is one of the more popular soup dumpling joints in Shanghai.



This was my first introduction to the workflow in most casual/no-frills restaurants in Shanghai: As you enter, you order, typically off a list of menu items printed (In Chinese -- No English menu...) on the wall behind the cashier, pay for your food and get a number, then go sit inside the restaurant at any table available. Sharing is common as most places have tables arranged for communal dining. Waiters/Waitresses emerge from the kitchen laden with baskets and trays of food, and yell out your number (In Chinese...) -- and when you indicate that the number is yours, they will bring the food to your table.



And in the next room, visible through a large glass window, a team of chefs were busy making dumplings…



We ordered, sat down, and before long, a large steaming basket of dumplings arrived at our table…



I picked one up carefully, dipped it in dark vinegar, and bit into the dumpling, letting the steaming broth flow out slowly…delicious!



We shared that basket of dumplings between the two of us, but the young man sitting across from us ordered an entire basket for himself…

[yflyer]

I certainly could have eaten a few more of those delicious dumplings, but we resisted the urge to order another basket, and instead headed across the street to Yang’s Fry Dumpling…



An even larger cooking crew were at work making their signature dumplings…



…these were fried, rather than steamed – a very different type of dumpling from the broth-filled Xiao Long Bao, but satisfying in their own way.



We spent the rest of the day, and the evening, at my friend’s wedding ceremony and festivities. This went on late into the evening...we returned to the Grand Hyatt exhausted and quite inebriated...

[yflyer]

The next morning, Mrs yflyer used all means of persuasion at her disposal to get me out of bed at a reasonable hour in order to continue her exploration of the Shanghai street food scene…

We headed to the French Concession, a green and leafy part of Shanghai for noodles…



Once again, order as you enter from a long list of possibilities, pay up, then sit at the communal tables…



A huge selection of noodles were available, with a variety of meat and seafood toppings…

Mrs yflyer chose a bowl of noodles topped with minced crab for herself….



and a bowl of noodles topped with pork intestines for me…



The fresh noodles had a wonderful texture, and the broth was very rich too…



…we had arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before opening time, and managed to grab seats right away, but as we ate our noodles, the placed rapidly filled up.

After the noodles, we walked through the leafy, shaded, boulevards of the French Concession in search of a famous spring onion pancake vendor, whose shop was located a short distance away…



Although I had the address programmed into Google Maps, the small shop was not visible from the main road, and we would have walked right past it if we had not noticed the fragrant aroma of spring onion pastries in the air, and a long queue of people under a canvas covering across the street.



We joined the queue and waited close to an hour before our turn, and as we reached the hole-in-the-wall outlet, we realized why.



There was just the celebrity vendor himself, hunched over a large hot plate and stove, cooking batch after batch of golden brown spring onion pancakes. As he prepared batches of pancakes, we watched as this artist worked.



There were quite a few steps in the process, from kneading the dough, to adding the spring onion, then placing them on the hot plate, flattening them with another metal plate, and of course checking the done-ness and flipping them at the right moment. He waltzed through each step as like a dancer in a choreographed dance…



The end result was a crisp, moist pancake that just burst with flavour…



There was nowhere to eat near the stall, but just a few steps away, there was a park bench, right by a statue of Rabindranath Tagore, where we could sit to savour the freshly baked pancakes…

[yflyer]

And further down the street, a good example of art deco architecture in this part of Shanghai, the Cathay Theatre…



That part of old Shanghai has its special charm, however the most iconic views of Shanghai are probably of the Bund, and of the Pudong skyline on the eastern side of the Huangpu river.

[yflyer]

That evening, we dined at Mr & Mrs Bund, located in a heritage building along the Bund.



A fairly large restaurant, with many tables close to the windows looking out onto the Bund.



There is also a balcony overlooking the Bund, which is a great place for a pre or post dinner drink.



There are set menus as well as an ala carte menu…





This restaurant takes great pride in where they source for their ingredients…



The wine menu was a separate iPad-based affair…



A “tin” of salmon mousse to start…



…a very light, almost foam-like mousse, to be eaten with crisp, ultra-thin toasted bread…



Cocktail list with both standards and originals…

[yflyer]

We began with bone marrow as a starter…



Sinful, but quite delicious…too bad it was warm rather than hot…



Tuna tartar…



The next table had large prawns…presented in a glass jar…



Asparagus…



On the menu, the main course selections, including steak and meat dishes, looked delicious, especially the long short rib teriyaki, which the couple in the next table shared…



…however it was enormous (much bigger than it looked in the menu) and looked way too much for us to eat, so we did not order it this time.

So for our mains, we shared a couple of smaller plates instead, picking the more, let’s say, interesting, items, such as the fried pig’s trotters…





..and stewed beef tripe…

[yflyer]

For dessert, we ordered the lemon tart, which they consider to be their signature dessert…



A whole lemon, soaked in syrup, hollowed out, and then filled with sorbet and vanilla chantilly…



This was an amazing dish, with the zing of lemon contrasting beautifully with the cream and sorbet within. The entire lemon, including the skin, could be eaten...



By then the sun had set, and from our window table, we were treated to amazing views of Pudong across the Huangpu river.

We stepped out onto the balcony once again to take in the vista before us, before leaving the restaurant...





Overall, this was a very good dinner. Pricing was more reasonable that you would expect at a place of this quality -- you would be hard pressed to find the same quality/price quotient for modern Western/Continental cuisine in Singapore for example.

The overall experience approached, but was not quite, fine dining...that last element of finesse and attention to detail that you get in the best restaurants was not there. That said, this place offered stylish and imaginative cuisine, generally well executed, in a striking setting and location, and there was an element of genius in some of the dishes such as the lemon tart. The atmosphere in the restaurant was fairly casual -- which I did not think was a bad thing. If I ever find myself in Shanghai again, I would head back there to try the short rib, and for a repeat of that sublime lemon tart.

[yflyer]

After dinner, we took a stroll along Nanjing East Road, which is busy pedestrian and shopping mall, probably the Shanghai equivalent of Orchard Road, except that it was even more crowded with shoppers and both locals and tourists out for an evening stroll.



Along the way, we saw groups of people indulging in a popular activity in Chinese cities: mass dancing.



This was a fairly small group – in other cities, and on previous visits to Shanghai, I have seen even larger groups go through their synchronized dance steps.

Also along Nanjing East Road, we paid a visit to Shanghai First Food Hall, a massive four storey retail store which showcases local food ranging from the commonplace to the weird and wonderful. If you had a dream (Or nightmare…) and in it the Harrods or Selfridges Food Hall was suddenly transplanted into China, and all their products morphed into oriental goods, this would be it…



Whether it was Chinese tea, herbs, preserved meat, ham or dried, salted fish, you would be able to find it here.



Not for the faint of heart, though. Some of the items on sale here would shock those of us whose main experience shopping for food is browsing the aisles of Cold Storage or NTUC…

[yflyer]

The last meal of the trip before our flight home was at a small restaurant specializing in local cuisine: Xiaobaihua Restaurant.



This was an intimate restaurant with less than ten tables.



We ordered a selection of dishes to share…



Small raw marinated prawns, served cold…



You could eat them shell and all, with a little chewing, but I preferred to eat just the flesh without the shell…



Steamed chicken…



A dish of small eel-like fish…



…and crispy fried chicken…



There were only 3 of us dining, but we did an incredible job demolishing the wonderful food laid out before us…no great hardship considering how tasty it all was…

After that substantial meal, we headed to Shanghai Pudong Airport for our mid afternoon flight back to Singapore…

To be continued…

[yflyer]

Thanks yflyer for the very detailed and informative writeup! Excellent seats and space, great for a day flight. I'll probably fly Y instead of J if economy class is available on the upper deck. Thanks once again

Thanks, rao67! SQ A380 J is great, but on SQ, flying Y on a short daytime sector is no great hardship either.

[yflyer]

Always enjoy your reports.

I heard a lot of complaints about the earphones too.
I hope they will phase it back.

Thanks SQueeze! Enjoy reading yours too!

Ya, hope they switch back to the headphones with the headband, or at least provide better quality earphones...

[yflyer]

Excellent report and pics as usual, yflyer!

Thanks, schumaster!

[yflyer]

Good report - thanks. Not much has changed on the A380 upper deck since I was last there, which is quite a while now. I always thought row 71 has the advantage that no one has any reason to walk past which minimises disturbance greatly.

Thanks, mr_botak!

Yes, Row 71 does seem more private than row 81...