Nu Chinese Bistro is located on McKim Way inside Cosmo Plaza on the 2nd floor. They were formally known as Nu Shanghainese Bistro, but after a change in ownership the name only slightly changed. The restaurant is quite hard to find and with the group of 11 of us, a majority of us took a while to find the restaurant.
As it is on the 2nd floor, it’s not easily seen on the street either.
The interior is quite nice and spacious. They take reservations for large groups, so it’s perfect for large families to dine here.
They also have private rooms that are slightly dolled up.
So, if you have a special occasion with a large amount of people, they really can accommodate. Just be warned that the service is quite sparse and not very attentive. We always had to nudge them to change our plates and refill our tea and water. Pretty typical with some Chinese restaurants, but lets see whats on their menu.
Sautéed Black Fungus 涼拌木耳 is a cold appetizer that we started off with. It was tender, crunchy and had a subtle hint of wasabi taste. It was odd, but I strangely liked it. I was a tad sick this week, so the wasabi cleared my sinuses a little bit.
Traditional Shanghai Smoked Fish 老上海熏魚 is another cold appetizer to start off the dinner. Nicely smoked but it was a tad on the dry side. The sweet soy sauce covering each piece went well with it.
Soy-Braised Kaofu Bran with Assorted Mushrooms 四喜烤麩 was the third cold appetizer that we had. I always had a strange curiosity about the gluten, which are the porous cubes in this dish. Since it’s so porous, it soaks up the sauce nicely.
Xiao Long Bao 南翔小籠包 was the first hot item for the meal. Each bamboo container has 6 dumpling and has a sauce on the side. The dumpling was thin and had ample amount of soup inside. Pretty good.
Clay Pot Wonton Chicken Soup 砂鍋竹笙餛飩雞 is a light soup to kick off the larger heavier dishes for the evening. The pea shoots are nice and sweet and I love pea shoots.
The staff will help portion the soup so you get a little bit of everything. ConstantCravings got a little bit extra in her soup in the form of a hair. Ick.
Special Beef Wrap 撈餅牛肉卷 comes with 6 pieces. it was good but the wrap itself was a tad dense for my liking.
BC Dungeness Crab with Fried Shanghai Rice Cake BC肉蟹炒年糕 was large and has 2 crabs that make up the dish when we were here. The price varies.
We had our silver shell crackers to break open the hard exo skeleton. The crab took us a long time to crack the shell to get into it’s sweet succulent meat. Quite a messy dish but we did have wet napkins to clean the delicious sauce off our fingers. As for the rice cakes, it was ok, but I would have preferred noodles or rice to accompany this dish.
Stone Pot Braised Pork Belly Shanghainese Style 石鍋紅燒肉 was my favourite dish of the evening. The pork belly was nicely braised and full of flavour. There were also knots of tofu in the dish.
Fried Green Beans with Minced Pork 幹煸四季豆（攬菜肉鬆）was ok, but I found it to be tad limp and oily.
Braised Tofu with Seafood 瓊山海鮮豆腐 was a nice break from the heavy and oily items we ordered. The tofu was very silky.
Xiang Jiang Tea Smoked Duck 湘江樟茶鴨 comes with little buns as well. The skin of the dusk was crispy but some pieces of meat were quite dry and use more smokey flavour.
I made a mini sandwich was the meat and the bun.
Beef tenderloin and eggplant with black pepper sauce 黑椒茄子牛柳粒 was good but also quite oily.
Sichuan Style Boiled Fish 蜀香水煮魚 is a typical item I enjoy in restaurants as I love spicy. This particular dish was spicy but enjoyable since it doesn’t scald your tongue with heat for a long time.
The fish was flakey and tender.
Zhenjiang Style Ribs 鎮江骨 was good, tender and had a yummy sauce.
Eight Jewel Sweet Rice 八寶飯 was quite bright in colour with the different ingredients in it. Inside the rice, you can find red bean paste. I didn’t particularly like this dessert.
Overall, their menu selection is quite large and diverse, but I didn’t find a lot of items that I particularly loved or stood out. The braised pork belly was great but thats because I love pork belly in any shape or form.
Since they are still new, they have some kinks to work out from their dishes and service.
Foodology Disclaimer: I was invited by ChineseBites to dine at Nu Chinese Bistro and my meal was comped. All thoughts are my own.
We Rate Nu Chinese Bistro:
Address:
Cosmo Plaza,
2170-8788 McKim Way,
Richmond
Website:
http://www.nushanghainesebistro.com/
