Classic Hong Kong restaurants: Shanghai 369, Wan Chai
Shanghai 369 has lightened up its menu but still serves traditional favourites such as xiao long bao the way its regulars like them
"These days people complain that our xiao long bao wrappers are too thick, but back in the day they needed to be thick because people ate for sustenance. It had to fill you up," says Hong-fu Dai, whose grandfather started Shanghai 369 Restaurant in 1965.
Barely 30 and with a chubby baby face, Dai speaks like a man who's been in the business much longer than 10 years. He talks about keeping things just the way they were, the demise of traditional Shanghainese food in Hong Kong and classic dishes nobody makes any more, like Ningbo cockles and tapertail anchovies.
"They take too much time and effort. These days, restaurants just want to sell you things they can make quickly to fill you up quickly, so they can turn the table," he says.
Dai's grandfather, who came from Shanghai, opened the first 369 in Yau Ma Tei. In 1983, after closing that, he opened another outlet in Kwun Tong and two in Wan Chai. Today, only the O'Brien Road branch remains.
Familiarity is central to their menu. With the likes of drunken chicken, crab roe tofu, lion's head meatballs and chives and eel soup, it's what Shanghainese immigrants craved if they were homesick.
Dai says: "We cook old-school Shanghainese classics. They are traditionally heavy on oil, soy sauce and sugar. We've lightened up the recipes, but there are regulars who come in and demand that we 'do it the old way', and so we do."