SmartShanghai | Mingmen Private Kitchens

Mingmen Private Kitchens

By Michael, Mar 11th, 2009 | In Dining

The triangular intersection of Dongping Lu and Yueyang Lu continues to host new restaurants every month, so it's easy to over look the relatively modest Mingmen Private Kitchens. (Incidentally, there's nothing private about it -- it's fully open to the public). Set between MAO Club and the Beaver, Mingmen specializes in deer meat -- just look for the stuffed Bambi in the window.

We first visited Mingmen to check out their delicious deer placenta for its weirdness factor, but found the whole menu to be worth exploring. Mingmen is the kind of local place that doesn't see many foreign patrons, despite being in the middle of a very foreign-friendly street. The charming, elderly proprietors gave us patient attention and described the menu in detail -- even our bowls of white rice were delivered with two careful hands and a big smile.

We started with the usual variety of cold vegetable small dishes that always start a Shanghainese meal. Mingmen doctors up the plate with fancy cut garnish, whimsical creations like tomato bunnies and bouquets of flower-cut cucumbers. A plate of shredded mixed vegetables were fresh and less oily than the usual (18rmb). Cold-cut meats had a welcome restrained saltiness (28rmb). The chicken feet weren't as good, served pickled white, cold and tough (22rmb).

But it's really all about the deer meat. Their deer steak (58rmb, pictured above), cubed and covered in black pepper gravy, was rich and hearty. The deer meat was a bit tougher and denser than your average steak, so the moist sauce complimented perfectly -- if a tad too sweet.

This is Shanghainese food after all.

If you're up for trying something more exotic, or need an aphrodisiac, check out the placenta soup (158rmb) or deer penis, but check the prices -- they go above 250rmb on some items, and are not more than a single serving bowl of soup. Wash that down with a big bottle of beer for only 8rmb. They've also got a good deal on Erdinger Dark: 30rmb for a big bottle.

Deer meat is purported to give men (and women) strength, and various parts of the animal are said to help the kidneys, skin, liver, etc. Beyond that, the menu is just like any other Shanghainese restaurant, but most of the dishes we tried were a cut above average.

The space is clean and minimal, with wood paneling and various dead dear parts attached to the walls or staring at you from the corners. We like the forest murals with happy deer prancing around. The downstairs main dining room is family-friendly, while the upstairs seems to be a party zone filled with chain-smoking, baijiu-swilling company gentlemen out to be macho and eat some deer.

Is deer meat a trend? We've seen it around a lot lately, including a new full-on deer butcher shop on Fahuazhen Lu.