Shanghai Blues is a very posh Chinese restaurant located in Holborn. Dark and mysterious on the outside it is equally dark and mysterious on the inside. More like a club than a traditional Chinese restaurant it certainly made for an interesting meal. I’ve walked by this restaurant so many times before but was always turned off by the prices which are fairly prohibitively expensive unless you have a business account or pockets lined with money. Its not a place you’d visit at the drop of a hat.

As expected from the atmosphere the service was superb – friendly and accommodating though at times slightly over-bearing. That could have had something to do with the fact we were in pretty early (just after 6pm) and were the only diners in the restaurant for over half an hour. Beautiful décor if you like the dark wood, deep red, dark blue, club-like feel to your restaurants.

Unusually for a Chinese restaurant there were a surprisingly large number and wide selection of vegetarian options for the diner’s choice and thus we decided to check it out tonight. Well, when I say “large number and wide selection” I mean certainly more than just one dish! It didn’t feel right to be eating meat when my brother wasn’t so apart from a starter of Crispy Eel Fillets, which I had all to myself, we stuck with all vegetarian dishes. From a presentation perspective Shanghai Blues was spot on … unfortunately, and I don’t know if it was to do with the nature of the dishes we selected, as from the taste perspective it wasn’t so crash hot. Though not particularly bland no flavours stood out especially. The tea service was funny. At the regular Chinese restaurant you may share a pot of tea (endlessly refilled with hot water) but at Shanghai Blues it’s a whole performance with personal service of the tea which comes on its own trolley at first and everything.

The Shanghai Blues menu is very diverse and quite unusual and there will definitely be something there for everyone’s palette. For all the lack of flavour in their vegetarian dishes I think its certainly worth another go to try out some of the other dishes (and maybe to check out their interesting twist on cocktails) but I may have to save up some pennies before I can come back and enjoy myself properly!