Our relationship with this place has had its ups and downs over the last few years. I’ve lost count how many times we’ve been back here, sometimes with groups of friends, with family, and the occasional schoolnight date – just the two of us 🙂

I waited a long time to do a proper post on Shanghai Chic, possibly because I was afraid I could not do its food justice. Hands down one of the best chinese restaurants in Dubai – and by that I mean in liloneoftheashes sense – i.e authentic chinese (suited to our tastes), and value for money.

So, how and when did we meet? 

Chinese New Year, 2014 – one of our friends organised a dinner get-together for their ‘Unlimited Tasting Night’.  It was so good I did a short post on it here and vowed to come back again to take proper photos so I could do a nice post. In the last two years , everytime that we came back it was with either with groups of friends (which means I had to hold back being that annoying person who takes out her camera to snap every piece of food), or it was just G and I and we had forgotten to bring the nice camera out 😉

What exactly is it?

For the unlimited tasting night you’ll be given a menu with about 50 odd dishes to choose from. If you’ve done the brunch at Asia Asia (click here for my review on it) or Karma Kafe it’s sorta like that, except you get more choices and it’s at night 😉

It’s serve-to-table style evening buffet, which means you don’t have to leave your seats whilst you’re with your mates 🙂 You get appetisers, dim sums, soups, fish and seafood dishes (fish, prawns, sometimes octopus, squid), vegetables and beancurd dishes, meat (lamb, beef, chicken, duck, pork!), as well as simple rice and noodle dishes. A bit of everything 😉

What’s so special about it, compared to other chinese restaurants in Dubai?

I can write a whole essay on this but I think I’ll leave it for a separate post comparing medium to high-end chinese restaurants in Dubai. To keep it short – it’s value for money with the Entertainer, they serve pork (yes, pork xiao long bao! sweet and sour pork, pork ribs), and they do almost every dish 95% well 🙂

What are your favourite moments (dishes)? 

They change their menu every so often, but the classics are kunafa wrapped prawns, sweet and sour pork with pomegranate vinaigrette, black pepper beef tenderloin and cantonese style roasted duck.

Care to share some of the photos of your times together?

These were taken at our last visit there few weeks ago. With a little girl growing inside me I was craving dim sum all week, and after looking through all the other famous dim sum spots in Dubai I settled to go back to Shanghai Chic 🙂

These two are usually made with pork but they do it so well with chicken. Tastes home-made, the Chicken bun pastry is so soft and fluffy, freshly steamed, mm.

Just a little for the two of us 🙂 Perfect.

This was so-so for me. It’s new on the menu. If you like your dynamite prawns from PF Changs you’ll like this.

The fish dishes on the menu are fairly seasonal. They always do something new. This time we thought we’ll try their Thai herb red snapper and buttermilk Nile perch. Both, different, but we still like our old-school sea bream or black cod.

Any fails?

They usually don’t last on the menu if it wasn’t great, he he. Their desserts tend to be a hit and miss as they try to do some fusion thing with asian ingredients. I remembered when they used to have mochi and G and I just kept ordering more and more (probably why they took it off the menu). Oh, and one time they had bubble tea! 🙂

Last visit, they introduced this toffee covered banana which I initially thought would be like Malaysian pisang goreng, but came out so hard you would need a chainsaw to break it open, he he. The one on the right hand side was a mango-ish pudding (I think?). So-so.

It would be nice to see Bubur cha cha back, use of coconut sago-based desserts, hot black rice pudding with coconut, red beans, mmm, okay maybe I should just go to the kitchen now…. 😉

Do you have photos of the good times from the  early days? 

Gonna be tough (or lazy) to dig out old photos but here’s a few that I found from twitter 😉

And, what about the bad days?

We had one really bad experience there, must have been end of 2014. Not gonna dwell, but basically there was a lot of miscommunication with handling a large group of 12, and nothing ends well when there’s a lot of drinks involved as well. I ended up writing to the restaurant afterwards, got a phonecall from the F&B manager, etc etc etc. We decided not to return for a many few months but gave in after we could not find anywhere better ha ha and ‘start anew’ 😉 All is well now, as I’ve noticed that they now have a proper drinks menu to clearly identify to patrons what is included in their alcoholic package to avoid misunderstandings. I had always requested that they let me know when they update their menu so we could return everytime, but this was never followed up, bummer.

How are you guys doing now?

We’re good 🙂

Since the little downside we’ve been back many times and service has been good. You can tell them to serve you dishes in little portions if it’s just you and a plus one attending (so you don’t end up wasting food).

We’re possibly returning again with a group quite soon. Another feast before I’m due, and we’ll definitely be back again and again when we’ve another addition to the family 🙂 Not so sure if it’s ‘family-friendly’ though – is it?

Alas, is it recommended as a ‘night brunch’ type of spot?

It’s no party spot for sure, but it will be good for groups of friends who don’t want to break their bank for good chinese and drinks. You’ll end up spending only 200AED for all-you-can-eat with drinks. Not too bad ay 😉

Much love to Shanghai Chic. And to the Entertainer as well for making it affordable all these years. 

• Unlimited Tasting Night
• 7:00pm – 11:00 pm
• 199 AED with soft beverage, 299AED with alcohol (Wednesday – Friday) 
• 155 AED with soft beverage, 255AED with alcohol (Saturday – Tuesday) 
• As with a lot of hotels (who get lazy updating their websites), the prices above are not yet updated on their site (hint hint). You can use the Entertainer for the soft beverage package and top up 100AED for the alcoholic package 😉 
• +971 4 444 0000 
• hotel.dubai.ibnbattuta@moevenpick.com

Disclaimer : All meals over the years have been paid by ourselves. All thoughts are honest.