Xiaodiao Litang Coastal City 小吊梨湯 海岸城店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

Xiaodiao Litang (小吊梨湯) is a well-known Beijing cuisine restaurant that we've had our eyes on for quite some time. Originally from Beijing, it’s best known for creatively incorporating fruits, especially pear into its meat and seafood dishes. While there are a couple of its outposts in Shenzhen, they are all a bit out of the way for us. But we're here to celebrate the birthday of Jelloman's mom so we decided to finally make the trip to its Coastal City Shopping Mall (海岸城購物中心) location.

Most restaurants in Shenzhen don’t take reservations and walk-in can be a pain in the behind. Such was the case tonight at Xiaodiao Litang as we waited more than a half an hour for our table.

Xiaodiao Litang (傳統梨湯壺) (¥38) – A warm and comforting pear soup that was the perfect way to start the meal especially on a cool evening. Light and soothing, thanks to the nice mix of pear and snow fungus. They don't name the restaurant after this for nothing.

Stewed Beef Risotto (招牌牛肉燴飯) (¥58) – Very soupy and flavorful with a rich beef broth, but the texture was more like regular rice than risotto. Decent but in my opinion, not quite in the territory of being considered a signature dish.

Stewed bacon and bamboo shoot in chicken broth (雞湯鹹肉煮脆筍) (¥48) – Jelloman and I are both suckers for bamboo shoots so this was an easy pick. The shoots were crisp and fresh while the chicken broth was delicate and fragrant – a lovely combination.

Mustard duck feet (芥末鴨掌) (¥58) – Jelloman’s favorite. The duck feet was served on a bed of Chinese cabbage with a thick mustard sauce providing a bold and pungent punch. Personally, I liked the one from Duck de King (金鴨季) a lot more. At least, they went the extra mile to remove the bones.

Pear-boiled nut and shrimp (梨球果仁蝦) (¥58) – I was expecting a balance of fruity and nutty flavors but while the pear came through, the nuttiness didn't really register. A bit of a letdown.

Crisp spiced chicken off the bone (招牌窯烤酥香脱骨雞) (¥128) – Since little nugget has had enough of Peking duck recently, we decided to go with another house specialty instead – their crispy chicken. This was pretty juicy and tender. Not bad.

Beijing-style pork jelly (京味肉皮凍) (¥42) – The jelly was made with a light pork consommé combining with pork skin, yellow beans and dried beans adding texture to the gelatin texture. There was also some deep, zesty flavor in the mix.

We should’ve taken a flyer on their Peking duck but little nugget said he has had enough of it in the past few weeks. Otherwise, that might have saved the day for all of us.

After dinner, we took a walk in the supermarket and hey, halloween is coming up soon obviously! 😅😅😅

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address:  Shop 063-1, Level B1F Coastal City Shopping Mall, 33 Wenxin No.5 Road, Nanshan, Guangzhou, China

深圳市南山区后海文心五路33号海岸城购物中心负1层063-1号铺

Closest Metro Station: Houhai (后海)

Tel: +86 (755) 8615-1924

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 3:00pm, 5:00pm - 9:30pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/c6/NCAc

Takietu Teppanyaki at Wyndham Grand Shenzhen 瀧悦鐵板燒 深圳溫德姆至尊酒店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

The birthday for Jelloman’s mom is coming up and we have planned a short day trip to Shenzhen for her over the weekend with a teppanyaki lunch as part of the celebration festivities.

Located inside Wyndham Grand Shenzhen (深圳溫德姆至尊酒店), Takietu Teppanyaki (瀧悦鐵板燒) has been lauded as one of the bargain deals in recent memory. Their teppanyaki lunch set including half of a lobster comfortably priced at 398RMB for two persons (minimum 2 people) had caught a lot of people’s eyes recently. In fact, even a TVB programme did a feature story on the restaurant in 2024 raving about their lunch set.

Everything worked out as planned in the morning. We crossed the border well before 10am and had a relaxing breakfast near the exhibition centre which was followed by a couple of hours of arcade games. Just before the noon hour, we slowly headed over to Gangxia station (岗厦站) where Wyndham Grand Shenzhen is situated. It was right outside Exit D so we didn’t have to walk very far.

Apart from the main dining area that sits around 10, Takietu offers a number of private rooms each sitting around 6 to 8 people. We were offered one of the small private rooms at the corner (no extra charge) as they already knew that we were there for a special occasion.

It took a while for us to get started mainly because our chef was trying to sort out all the ingredients. For us, we could only play the waiting game as it was an omakase experience without a fixed menu.

Lunch finally kicked off with a small Japanese style salad. To no one’s surprise, it was served with a sesame based dressing.

Then, came a Japanese chawanmushi (茶碗蒸し) with mushrooms atop.

At this point, our chef finally fired up the stove to set things in motion. All that while we enjoyed some assorted vegetable tempura. This including an eggplant, sweet potato, carrot and zucchini tempura.

Finally, we got some real teppanyaki food!

Each of us got a seared scallop served on some grilled porcini mushrooms and a pool of Beurre Blanc sauce. Slow but fine start!

While we were still enjoying our scallop dish, our chef was seen preparing some garlic chips, which are arguably one of my favorite food on earth, especially from a teppanyaki meal.
I thought the garlic chips were intended for the garlic rice at a later stage but turned out they were accompanying the beef mushroom roll. This was pretty decent.

We were already looking ahead to our grilled lobster but there was one more dish sandwiched in between, steamed oyster. The oysters were steamed with diced garlic and what I thought was fresh miso to balance out the briny flavors.

And at last, little nugget’s favorite grilled lobster served with spaghetti. The spaghetti was nicely tossed with a tomato based sauce.

Yeah, the lobster was served up with a mildly flavored sea urchin sauce on top. Pretty nice. 👍🏻

We caught a break in action following the lobster dish with some grilled vegetables which were primarily bean sprouts, bean sprouts and bean sprouts. 🌱 

It was then followed up by a small bowl of miso soup.

And when everyone was thinking dessert (or fruit), our chef began working the stove again. It was time for some fried rice.

     

After flipping the rice back and forth, it was ready to be served. This came with different types of onions, chives, egg and minced beef. The bite was certainly not bad but less to the fanfare, most of us already had too much to eat around this time.

Dessert was a small piece of dragon fruit and pineapple. Was the pineapple pickled or did it really come with so much acidity? 😣😖

For about 200RMB per head, I don’t think we can ask for more (food). Yes, I thought the kitchen didn’t look organized to start things off (so it took longer than I thought) and the food quality was not exactly top notch but all in all, it was a nice teppanyaki experience and I was happy my first one in Shenzhen was not met with any major complaints.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: ¥¥

Address: 3/F Wyndham Grand Shenzhen, 2009 Caitian Road, Futian, Shenzhen, China

深圳市福田区彩田路2009号温德姆至尊酒店三楼

Closest Metro Station: Gangxia (岗厦)

Tel: +86 (755) 8866-2982

Opening Hours: 11:30am - 2:00pm, 5:30pm - 10:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/bd/w-Bi

Jervois Cafe Sheung Wan 蘇杭冰室 上環店 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

It took me a week to get back to the swing of things after returning from Seoul but I am finally ready to roll again. Since I have the afternoon off, I thought I should venture over to Sheung Wan to see if my favorite boutique has any new clothes in store for me.



After trying out different new arrivals, it was already 3pm and I still haven't had lunch yet! My usual choice at this hour would be one of the ramen shops on Gough Street but not today. Not when I have been missing some of my favorite pantyhose milk tea during my time in Seoul. Next thing I knew, I found myself knocking on the door at Jervois Cafe Sheung Wan (蘇杭冰室 上環店).

Hot milk tea (熱奶茶) – The milk tea was pretty robust with a smooth, velvety texture but it could have been a little more fragrant. And on a personal note, a little more milk could have been the saving grace here as I like it more on the creamier side.

Scrambled eggs with barbecued pork on rice (滑蛋叉燒飯) – One of the most comfort dishes one could find from a local cha chaan teng. The soft and silky scrambled eggs were just perfect and although the barbecued pork was more on the lean side, it was a combination of flavors that I truly missed throughout the past week.

So happy and grateful that I got my milk tea fix this afternoon. The scrambled eggs with barbecued pork on rice wasn't bad either. This place is definitely worth a return trip. 

Food Rating: 5.3/10

Price: $$$

Address: G/F, 3 Jervois Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Sheung Wan

Tel: +852 2352-7778

Working Hours: 7:30am - 9:00pm daily