Shanghai Blues
193-197 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7BD
Telephone: 020 7404 1668

Upon entering this swish oriental restaurant in the heart of Holborn you need to give your eyes time to adjust to the dark. The décor is cool and contemporary but you have to be careful not to walk into a table or a waiter. Once your eyes have adjusted however, you can clearly see that this restaurant oozes character and style. Situated in the grade II listed building that formerly housed the St Giles library, the high ceilings in the dining rooms give a wonderful feeling of space combined with more secluded areas such as the VIP bar and the private dining room.

So anyway, let’s cut to the chase. We’ve covered the building and the décor but what’s the food like? Well the menu is huge so you’ll be spoiled for choice.

The menu is large but some nice nibbles of prawn crackers (light brown not blinding white), cucumber in chilli (eye-wateringly hot) and what I think must be deep fried chickpeas, (or maybe a designer peanut) kept us busy. What with the wide selection, plus the extra dishes of the week on a separate sheet, it’s almost impossible to choose. The special of king prawns wrapped in ‘waffer-thin’ pastry were very nicely deep-fried, with no hint of grease, and enlivened by a spiky dipping sauce. The wild mushroom and vegetable soup is a very elegant soup; the flavours subtle (not bland) and a good mixture of fresh mushrooms that didn’t have the embalmed human ear texture of reconstituted dried ones.
I took the pork fillet with lemon grass and basil for a main course and it came, as does everything else here, beautifully presented, I mistook a lemon grass stalk, of which there were plenty, for a spring onion but this wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Normally these are like bits of wood but this was almost tender enough to eat. The pork was tender, finely sliced and the whole dish well flavoured and balanced. Our fried rice came inside a large pancake parcel, broken open at the table to reveal the well cooked (perhaps fractionally undercooked, it’s a matter of taste) rice within.

When you think of fresh fruit salad you can’t help but be put off with thoughts of diced apple, pear, orange segments and grapes in a stock syrup or orange juice. However, the feast of fresh fruits available at Shanghai Blues are breathtaking – there were fruits I never new existed cut with precision and perfectly complimented by a homemade Jasmin ice-cream.

For the perfect finish forget coffee and try one of the many herbal teas. They are the perfect way aid your digestion and help you to leave both satisfied and relaxed.