Tang Palace: The Bird House

If you find yourself in the waiting area at Tang Gong (an hour-long inevitability if you go for dim sum on the weekends), there’s plenty to see to make the minutes go by faster. Slip-covered chairs lined up like movie theater seats in the lobby are an ideal perch for people-watching, although you’ll have to turn away from the display of Moutai baijiu and the flat-screen they face for a better view of the hungry hordes. Off to the side is an aquarium teeming with spiny lobsters, abalone and one giant grouper that has been there as long as we’ve been coming – at least six years; we’re surprised he hasn’t grown out of his tank at this point. But the seafood, while decent, isn’t why it seems like half of Shanghai queues for a chance to dine underneath the bejeweled chandeliers. Here, it’s all about the squab.

The restaurant’s signature dish is roasted young pigeon (脆皮乳鸽, cuìpí rǔgē). Like a gamey version of fried chicken (the name in Chinese actually means “crispy-skinned squab”), the birds are simmered whole in a five-spice marinade until cooked through, then drained and dried before being deep-fried. The whole process leaves the rich gamey meat juicy, while the skin snaps with a brittle crust under your chopsticks. Served quartered, the baby pigeons are reassembled on golden plates with their heads placed gingerly back on their necks, which are thrown back to show off the slicing deathblow.

While most of the dim sum dishes take a backseat to the squab, a few Cantonese dishes are done with such flair that they are well worth ordering. If you don’t like abalone for its typical toughness, try Tang Gong’s baked flaky pastries (鲍鱼酥, bàoyú sū), which magically render the mollusk downright tender; your teeth slice through them as easily as a steak knife. (It helps that they’re shucked and cooked fresh from the aquarium tanks out front.) Creamy durian custard pastries (榴莲酥, liúlián sū) are another surprising crowd pleaser. The rotten perfume of the stinky fruit is tempered by the oven thanks to the pastry’s high fat and sugar content, and these spiky hedgehog-looking treats go down smoothly, even for those who can’t stomach the stench of the raw fruit.

Slippery steamed rice paper rolls stuffed with deep-fried Chinese crullers and drizzled with soy sauce (炸两, zháliǎng) are another must-have for our table. But it’s all just a precursor to what will predictably be our second order of squab.

Published on August 18, 2014

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