Spicy Moment, Shanghai – Hunan Cuisine with Unassuming Style
After living in Shanghai for awhile, I realize that I have developed a craving and tolerance for spicy food. Hunan’s spicy cuisine rises up to the top of my list of favored spicy dishes. With Di Shui Dong and Guyi are the two more well-known establishments in Shanghai, now enters Spicy Moment.
Open just a month ago, by Dant Deng 邓佥潋 – a designer by trade, features airy dining space with wood features with special attention to lighting. You could be enjoying enjoying almost any other cuisine in any other city around the world in his restaurant design.
What to Order: Pumpkin dessert, Sliced bean curd in sour & spicy sauce, Shredded Chicken (La Zi Ji) What not to Order:
Rating 2 Pigs Price Range 2 $/¥/NT
Links Smart Shanghai, Talk Magazine, DianPing, Foursquare, Sugared & Spiced
Spicy Moment 五原路71号, 近常熟路 71 Wuyuan Lu, near Changshu Lu +86 21 5403 0775
Spicy Moment is new Hunan restaurant in contemporary dining setting
Look for Dant Deng 邓佥潋, the owner. He also has a furniture boutique across the street.
Spicy Cold Fungus. After immediately finding out seats, Brother Deng greets us and offers selections from his home province. His emphasis on localvore, organic, and carefully selected ingredients had us almost had our mouths watering with hunger. We started with the cold spicy black fungus - a local shanghai ingredient with spicy Hunan influence. This particular twist was appealing to me.
Cold dish appetizer - Fenpi: Sliced bean curd in sour & spicy sauce. This dish was one of my favorites of the night. 12 RMB. Next we had the Sliced bean curd in sour & spicy sauce, which was my favorite of the night. The slippery jello-like tofu has good texture and melded with the spicy sauce well. The presentation was was interesting with the round pyramid structure.
Shredded Chicken. Another great refreshing and non spicy dish. Another excellent choice. I liked this dish a lot, too. I think non-chinese would like it as well. Spicy but not too spicy and boneless.
Soup Noodles, with dried fish and vegetables with Fresh Alkaline noodles. I am not sure what Alkaline noodles are - but it was good. The centerpiece of the night. I didn’t like the dried fish, which provides flavor with a chewy texture - a bit off-settling.
The Famous Hunan Spicy Fish Head. Quite spicy. Though there was great flavor, there were way too many bones for my liking. Way too many bones.
Pumpkin dessert with black sesame glutinous rice balls. The pumpkin has a subdued flavor with the thick slightly sweet broth. Very good!
