Whenever I visit Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant @ Bugis, I will reminisce the good old busy days of working with my team in the vicinity. Despite slogging away 24/7 then, we always tried to find time to treat ourselves to a good meal whenever time permitted us to do so and this Shanghainese restaurant was one that we would frequent.
Nanxiang is also one of my husband’s long time favourite chinese restaurants since we started dining there during our early dating days. And these are the usual dishes we’d go for, that we highly recommend if you haven’t been here.
Nanxiang Drunken Chicken $8.50
A popular Shanghainese appetiser, the drunken chicken is cooked and marinated in Shaoxing wine and served chilled. This chicken is poached to perfection; the dark meat is tender & moist and the skin is smooth & silky. There is hardly any fat on the chicken meat. The wine is rich in flavour but not intoxicating.
Crab Roe & Pork Filling Steamed Buns $13.80
I like the way the restaurant has labelled their respective steamed buns with a wooden sign in the middle so if you order different flavours, you’d know what you’re eating.
These buns come in thicker skin (typical of Shanghainese style xiao long bao) especially at the top (where the folds are) that nicely seals the flavoursome juices (or soup) with the filling. A good thing about the skin being thicker than most is that we won’t risk breaking it and losing the juices when we pick it up with our chopsticks. Anyway, I spit out the tough dough at the top which is just too chewy and bland to consume.
While I don’t see or taste much crab roe in every steamed bun, I do like the sweet and fragrant meat juices. It is probably not worth paying more for crab roe that is hardly noticeable.
Homemade Beancurd $8.00
A very unique creation of deep-fried beancurd mixed with meat, seafood and aromatics. The outside is crispy but not greasy and the inside is dense and firm. It’s like eating a thick meat patty. This comes with sweet chilli sauce and mayo dips.
Sauteed Prawn Balls with Fish Roe & Fresh Fruits in Blended Wasabi Sauce $16.80
This is what the husband and I come here for. Prawns that are deep fried to perfection and then tossed in wasabi-mayo sauce. The prawns are big, fresh and crunchy. The sauce is rich and creamy with the right amount of wasabi taste in it. There are also traces of diced fruits (probably canned fruit cocktail) that give that extra burst of sweetness and crunch. Very appetising dish.
Bean Sauce Minced Pork Noodle $9.00
Zha jiang mian 炸酱面 is a noodle dish that I’d always order if it’s on the menu and I like the noodles here because the bean sauce is very flavoursome but not overly salty. The minced meat used is rather lean too. Also, the meat sauce comes in a good portion, enough to eat the noodles with. The noodles are nicely cooked till al dente so they maintain that chewiness and springiness in them.
Shanghai Fried Rice $7.50
This plate of fried rice may look simple and common but it is delicious! Every rice grain is well separated and is neither too hard nor too soft. In fact, the rice is so thoroughly tossed in the wok that in every mouthful, you get a lovely wok hei (flavour imparted by hot wok on food). Very well executed indeed!
Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant
200 Victoria Street
#02-53 Bugis Junction
Tel: 6835 7577
Website
Opens: 11.00am to 10.00pm daily