Category: City: Ningbo

Dining with authentic Italian food at Barolo in Ningbo

I do not know all the story, but the restaurant Barolo has a real Italian chef in the kitchen and offers very interesting and authentic Italian dishes. Barolo is a town and wine from Piedmont, a Northern Italian region. It is remarkable and deserves a review since Ningbo does not stand out in terms of non-Chinese food. Here’s the write up of my two visits.

The visit(s)

The restaurant is located in a shopping and entertainment complex called The East Shore, not far away from downtown Ningbo.

One interesting thing about the restaurant is that they always have a lot of specials available (ask for the blackboard) on top of the regular menu. Also, they organize special events time to time. On my first visit they had porchetta and on my second visit they had a number of tuna dishes.

On both of my visits the bread (with some diced tomatoes) was supplemented by a croquette.

The porchetta dish was quite big, suitable for two people to share. It was very good.

Porchetta is a boneless pork roast part of the Italian tradition prepared with garlic, rosemary, fennel, or other herbs.

During the “porchetta night” I also had homemade gnocchi with veal ragout. It was a very delicate dish, from the specials.

The dessert was an homage to the Piedmont tradition, a gianduiotto mousse.

In my second visit I had a tuna tartare with buffalo cheese cream puffs. The cheese was a very good complement.

I tried their ravioli filled with cheese. Another very delicate dish beautifully presented.

The main dish was grilled tuna (rare inside, tataki style) with vegetables and a spinach sauce. Perfect dish, again very professionally presented.

To “cap” the meal I had a bonet, a cake that can be described as a cross-over between creme caramel, blancmange and chocolate pudding that has been prepared in Piedmont for centuries.

The check(s)

The first meal, with two courses and dessert, cost me 414 RMB (62 USD).

The second check was 670 RMB (100 USD) for appetizer, pasta, main and a dessert. The check above shows 720 RMB, but there was a mistake in the price of the main dish and I did not pay that.

Barolo is an excellent restaurant, its food and presentation is up to five-star standards. It could be a restaurant in Shanghai. Unfortunately quality costs and the price point is not cheap.

Where in Ningbo:
No. 3-5, The East Shore, Yinzhou District
In Chinese: 东岸里广场.
Tel: 0574-87078717

An authentic izakaya in Ningbo

Ningbo is a second-tier city in Zhejiang, China, and is known to be a manufacturing powerhouse. In China Japanese food is “so so” and in Ningbo non-Chinese food is just forgettable. So it is really incredible that i get to review a great izakaya in this city off-the-beaten path.

They have an extensive menu including sushi and sashimi (the same owner also operates a restaurant upstairs that was initially a Thai joint, then it was turned into a Japanese sushi and sashimi place; finally only recently the izakaya menu was merged with the sushi menu… synergies take time I guess).

The entrance is located on a corner just across the car entrance of the Ningbo’s Sheraton hotel.

The visit

Before 7pm it is usually quite empty. I usually seat at the counter where you can see the cooks working on the grill. They use charcoal and have a nice “vertical” grill that I have never seen outside Japan.

It is not a large place, but they have 4 or 5 private rooms with Japanese style seating horigotatsu.

The cheesy Japanese background music reminds you that you are not in Japan, but the place also has some original touches as the basket under the table where to place your overcoat or bags and the bottles of liquor marked with the name of the customer on a wooden plaque.

They have ankimo sashimi. This dish alone is worth the trip (if you are in Ningbo). Not easy to find outside Japan and it was very reasonably priced. Ankimo is monk fish liver sashimi; you can liken it to foie gras: it is seafood foie gras. It is a great delicacy and it was properly served with momiji oroshi as a garnish (grated Japanese daikon with red chili).

Then I usually have their beef in teriyaki sauce. On this visit the beef was very tender and just delicious.

I also had a beef carpaccio, with thinly sliced beef superficially cooked.

Their forte is certainly grilled dishes. Some yakitori is a must. I usually have chicken breast (picture above).

Then I had pork belly (a bit overcooked, but still good; usually they look like in the featured photo on top).

And finally I had duck fried dumplings that I also liked.

All dishes were authentic enough and very tasty. They have my seal of approval.

The check

This was a lot of food, I was kind of hungry… and the check came at 265 CNY (or 38 USD). You can have a satisfactory meal probably for 25 USD. By Chinese standards, this is very reasonable (non Chinese food tends to be expensive in China).

Where in Ningbo:

My take on Din Tai Fung, the soup dumpling powerhouse

I have been to Din Tai Fung in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Ningbo. Admittedly I have not visited their original location in Taipei, but I think I can have an opinion about this celebrated restaurant: it is overrated.

The visit

This review is based on a visit of their Ningbo branch with a friend. Honestly, all the branches I have been are remarkably similar.

In Ningbo they are located near the Convention Center, a bit far away from downtown. The restaurant is spacious and simple.

The first thing you notice is the kitchen staff making soup dumplings in immaculate white uniforms behind a glass window. They look like the personnel of a lab. It is one of the signature feature of Din Tai Fung.

Just in case you are not familiar, soup dumplings (or xiaolongbao) are steamed buns that carry inside little bits of gelatinized broth made from chicken, pork and cured ham. When the dumpling is steamed, the broth gelatin melts like a soup… hence the name.

Soup dumplings were born in Wuxi and Shanghai, but Din Tai Fung in Taiwan made them an international sensation. They have locations across Asia and in the US (mainly in California).

Din Tai Fung soup dumplings are admittedly perfection, from a visual point of view. There is something regular and appealing in the way they are folded. Even the presentation in the bamboo steamer suggests a precise design.

We ordered two of the premium soup dumplings: the one with pork and crab meat (pictured above, double portion) and the one with truffle and pork (pictured below).

The truffle flavor honestly was really understated (it was better in Shanghai). I am not sure that crab and pork work well either. I do not know… I am not a big fan of dumplings, but I cannot place these decisively above the one had in more common eateries.

Another characteristic feature of Din Tai Fung is the ginger arranged like a starfish (or a root?) in the soy sauce mini bowl. Din Tai Fung recommends to pour one part of soy sauce and three parts of vinegar to obtain the perfect sauce for the dumplings.

You are also recommended to first try the dumplings without any sauce, by placing one on a spoon, then poking it to get some of the soup out (this will also cool it). I personally prefer to eat them entire in one bite… but it is kind of dangerous because the soup can be super hot. I appreciated that the dumplings that were served were at the right temperature to eat them in one bite.

We also had a wonton soup. Also good, but again, I could not experience “the next level” as opposed to the same dish had in other restaurants in Ningbo or Shanghai.

We also had a fried pork chop that was excellent. Din Tai Fung it is not only dumplings.

We closed with sweet dumplings with red bean paste. Red bean is a common ingredient for desserts in Asia. These sweet dumplings were excellent.

The check

The two of us spent 487 CNY (or 70 USD, 35 USD per person). For this quality meal, I am fine with the price point and, by the way, we had some of the most expensive varieties of dumplings.

Do not get me wrong, I totally enjoyed this meal and others I had at Din Tai Fung. Just I could not be carried away. Probably part of the problem is my limited knowledge of Chinese cuisine. But while on other occasions I could perceive a clear divide between everyday Chinese food and the same dishes from a Michelin-starred restaurant, in this case this divide was less clear and this makes me think that Din Tai Fung is overrated.

Where in Ningbo:
MinAn East Road 268, f Tower 1 Floor
Address in Chinese: 江东区民安东路268号F座1楼
Check the restaurant’s website for a list of locations across China and world-wide.