Revisit Shangri-La Notable Taiwanese & Sichuan in Belmont (Longish)

I have to plug this place again. The food is just so damn good!

My wife, some friends, and I ate there the other night and were just blown away.

According to them the style is Taiwan Style with some Sichuan influences.

We discovered Green Beans Starch & cucumber. When we asked what it was the hostess brought a pancake out of the kitchen which was still stiff. I imagine like bean thread it is soaked in water cut into wide strips. A pile of these mung bean noodles covered a pile of juliened cucumber. They kept only the crunchy part of the cuke and chucked the watery middle. It was covered with a rich brown delicately sesame sauce. The dish was just sublime! The interplay of textures and flavors was a home run.

We also had excellent perfectly cooked pan fried white turnip cake.

Bean Curd Skin rolled with Mushroom. Neither skin (which I have had) nor rolled, it is chunks of hardy gooey bean curd in a form I have never had in a slightly sweet sauce with shrooms.

Black mushroom and chinese vegetable (baby bok choy). This dish was delicate and perfectly executed. The presentation was very pretty too.

And the piece de resistance: I saw another table order Ginger Chicken Casserole. This took 20 min to prepare. A HUGE portion, essentially a whole chicken stewed in a rich fragrant gingery sauce. It was awesome comfort food and just a really notable dish. The sauce was very complex with slivers of ginger througout. This was the priciest thing on the menu for $12.

They also have a very reasonable lunch menu. I had Shredded pork with spicy garlic sauce not too long ago for $5.75. He said that this was basically the Yu Hsiang Pork on the dinner menu for $6.95.

Other notes: I have never had a bad meal there and often have realy notable dining experiences. I eat a lot of chinese and this place consistently stands out! Most of the time I eat there, at least half of the people are Chinese. Some of them drive quite long distances to check the place out.

I highly recommend it!

Just over the Cambridge Line.

Shangri-La
149 Belmont Street
617-489-1488