Fang's Restaurant 方家小館

In celebration of Frank's visit and his 40th birthday and to coordinate with the boys' school schedule, we had dinner at Fang's on Tien Mu East Road last night. Fang's is a pretty standard Shanghainese restaurant, featuring the usual Shanghainese fare such as stewed fatty pork (東坡肉), stir fried crabs (醬爆蟹), steamed dumplings (小籠包) and soup with ham and bamboo shoots(醃篤鮮). Apart from these, Fang's has branched out into food from other Chinese provinces such as Szchewanese and Cantonese food. Fang's is also the only decent Chinese restaurant (other than a couple of Taiwanese restaurants) in the Tienmu area.

We have been to Fang's a number of time and the food quality has been consistently good, albeit not spectacular. Apart from all of the above mentioned dishes, we had drunken chicken(醉雞)/sliced spicy beef tripe(蔴辣肚絲) for appetizer, followed by sea cucumbers with "tiger paws" (海蔘虎掌 which was excellent), stewed beef brisket(牛腩堡), spicy intestine stew (五更腸旺), scallion pancake, three-cup mushrooms (三杯杏鮑菇) as well as the traditional birthday noodles. Nick and Matt also requested a plate of shrimp fried rice and it was polished off by the two boys within 10 minutes.

Annie's Dad, brought a magnum of Chateau Margaux '86 to share. Unfortunately, the cork had rotted and disintegrated during the decorking process and the wine was probably shaken from the long journey from Uncle Tsu's home. Nevertheless, we finished the magnum of fine wine between Annie, her Dad and I with gusto. While I have never developed a taste for expensive French wines, this bottle was very tasty despite of the initial mishaps.

The dinner was topped off with a sugarless cheese cake from Florida Bakery.

Overall, our dining experience was good and the service was great. While all of the food items we ordered were good, I would specifically like to mention and recommend the "tiger paws" which is a pork tendon "part." When properly stewed, it offers fantastic texture (gelatenous) and flavour.

Food: **
Ambiance: *
Price: $$/$$$
Repeat visit: ***