Three new restaurants around town. Yunnan staple Slurp opens another casual eatery on Yanping Lu with wine, there’s an oden bar in the lane across The Cannery, and a French-Japanese bistro in Yongping Li.
Slurp & Sip
Address: No. 11, 98 Yanping Lu, near Wuding Lu 延平路98号-11临, 近武定路
Tel: 19117246773
Hours: 11am-midnight
Slurp & Sip is a fast-casual eatery on Yanping Lu, a sister restaurant of Yunnan staple Slurp. At night, it winds down into a wine bar, mostly serving natural wines.
They have some excellent lunch sets. A rice noodle set (¥68) comes with a choice of dry or soup noodles (four each to choose from), one side dish, and one soft drink; and a rice set (¥78) comes with one rice dish, one side, and one soft drink. It’s plenty for lunch. And it comes out piping hot real quick, despite the rush hour.
Dinner is a full a la carte menu of Yunnan dishes, including whole fish in a spicy-limey chili sauce (¥78), hand-shredded lemon chicken (¥58), grilled pork neck (¥62), and more.
Slurp has always been consistently good, and it’s no surprise that this location is doing very well.
Modern Oden 三角关夕
Address: No. 107-1, 1088 Yuyuan Lu, near Jiangsu Lu 愚园路1088弄48号107-1室, 近江苏路
Tel: 18901643306
Hours: 11am-10pm
Modern Oden is a Japanese restaurant that specializes in oden and omusubi, located in the lane across from The Cannery.
Oden is a Japanese stew, usually with dashi as the base. Skewers, meat, and veg are boiled in the soup. It’s a nabemono, a hot pot style of dish. Omusubi (or onigiri) are rice balls, usually shaped into triangles, toppings pressed or mixed into the center or around.
Omusubi are an inexpensive meal, it’s mostly rice and fills you up. They’ve gotten creative with the rice balls (starting from ¥28), topping them with truffles, parma ham, and cheese. There are more traditional ones, topped with mentaiko and uni.
As for the oden, there are sets from ¥78, or you can customize your own as you would at a hot pot restaurant. The broth is mild and clean, flavored with pork bones and dashi. Toppings run the gamut from shaved beef, fish cakes, tofu, an assortment of skewers, and vegetables. There are a couple a la carte dishes as well.
Overall, it’s a good, inexpensive lunch spot if you live/work in the area. Service is friendly.
Le Bistrot de 鸟啸 (Niao Xiao)
Address: 108, Bldg 2, 199 Hengshan Lu, near Yongjia Lu 衡山路199号2号楼1楼108室, 近永嘉路
Tel: 54019356
Hours: 5:30pm-1am
Le Bistrot de 鸟啸 by MIG is a French-Japanese restaurant and wine bar in the space formerly STYX in Yongping Li. The name, 鸟啸 (pronounced niao xiao) is perhaps a play on the word 烧鸟 (shao niao), which means yakitori. And that’s exactly what’s on the menu—Japanese skewers, but with some French entrées.
It’s by the same restaurant group behind Miss Ali, Le Verre a Vin, Le Vin, Sushi Takumi, and 鸟啸 (two other locations sans the French spin).
The space resembles a bistrot more than yakitori, unless you’re sitting by the grill counter. It’s cozy. Mostly tables for two or four.
It’s not so much French-Japanese fusion as it is two different menus in one booklet—French entrées of rabbit and duck confit alongside yakitori (from ¥13/skewer). There are a couple of fusion-y dishes like the chicken liver with sabayon sauce, but from my experience, the French dishes fared better.
Here’s what to expect:
As a restaurant concept, it doesn’t really come together. The two different menus are disjointed and neither are strong enough on their own. Honestly, it’s a weird mix. However, if you’re in the area and looking for a glass of wine, it might be an option. I would not recommend it for the food.
