china ii: song yue lou [ 松月楼 ], shanghai

One of my favourite places I visited in Shanghai was 豫园, which inexplicably is known as Yuyuan Garden in English. Yu Yuan is really pretty and lovely, and also a huge tourist attraction filled with lots of people and surrounded by markets and restaurants. One of those restaurants is Song Yue Lou, which is located outside Exit 5 of the Yu Yuan complex. Song Yue Lou is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai, and takes on the fairly common format of fast food downstairs and sit down ala carte upstairs.



Due to circumstances, we also ended up at Song Yue Lou on two occasions (both lunches). On the first of these visits, we sat upstairs and ordered a variety of foods, including bao and noodles. Desperate for some noodles, I ordered the curry noodle soup all on my own, and C went for a curry, with bao and rice. I also had coconut juice from a can. The bao was super doughy, but the filling was good. I found my noodles quite excellent, with some nice yellow wheat noodles.



On the second visit we ventured upstairs but were banished downstairs with a grumble, as we only wanted to order single dishes and not a meal to share. On this visit we both ordered noodles, though I fail to recall which one (the same, as it turned out, because the noodles I wanted were not available); in addition C ordered the glutinous rice dessert, which was thick and gloopy.

Service downstairs is fast; service upstairs is okay but can be a little grumpy. There are stairs (and no elevator) upstairs, and a little step up into the building. Smoking is allowed, and credit card facilities are available.

song yue lou
99 Jiujiaochang Rd
Huangpu District
Shanghai

Get there on Line 10 (the purple line) of the Metro.

松月楼
上海
黄浦区
旧校场路99号