Ning Hai Shi Fu is another of the big names of seafood in Ningbo. Originally from another city called Ning Hai, it has several locations in Ningbo that are usually very busy. I visited their Yinzhou branch with two friends on a weekday and it was jam-packed.
The visit
The restaurant in Yinzhou district I visited boasted a cabinet full of prized Moutai wine, with a lot of bottles from rare years selling for over 1,000 USD each.
My party was given a table in a room with other two small groups.
As usual we went to the room where all kind of seafood and dishes were on display and we placed our orders. All labels were translated into English and prices were clearly indicated. Having a Chinese speaking friend helped a lot, but I think one could manage an order even with no Chinese (if you are not picky about the details of the preparations).
Some watermelon was offered free of charge.
And so were some hot bread filled with sesame paste.
One of the appetizers we chose was preserved cold meat sprinkled with Moutai. I promise you that there was no trace of the prized wine.
Seasonal vegetables.
One of our mains was a tail of a large fish called “rhubarb” that came with purple potato noodles. It looked like a large seabass.
The result was a braised fish in a delicious sauce with noodles. Luckily there was a lot of meat and not many bones.
I insisted on ordering the geoduck (the clam with an overgrown body pictured above on the right).
It came as a sashimi. A large part of the clam was its stomach, which we did not eat.
The stomach was used to give flavor to a soup with rice that we got at the end of the meal.
A very nice dish was rice cakes with squid ink. The rice cakes were soft, like mochi.
We had the restaurant’s home made shrimp cakes that were excellent, with pieces of shrimps discernible in the paste.
We also tried their local abalone (a bit chewy but affordable) in two styles: braised and steamed with a garlic sauce.
The check
The final check was 738 RMB (105 USD or 35 USD per person). We did not pick any super expensive seafood such as king crabs or yellow croaker, but we had more than enough for three people and the final bill was incredibly reasonable. It is another winner if you wish to feast on seafood in Ningbo.
Where in Ningbo:
613 Siming Zhong, Yinzhou.
(There are several locations with slightly different menus, this is where we went.)
Tip: write “Ninghai Restsaurant” in Didi and double check the resulting address.