Modern Shanghai Bistro

Chinese restaurants in Halifax, and presumably all over the continent, open to little fanfare compared to their more contemporary competitors, with their hip designs and strong social media surge before opening. Modern Shanghai Bistro was no different when it took over the spot that former Quinpool stalwart Greek Village had left behind.
The décor is quite simple, with some Chinese wall hangings and paintings, and what looked to be a mural on the back wall from the previous tenant. Seating is a mix of several booths along the walls and a few tables down the middle of the restaurant. It was very quiet when we arrived, although we had come at Senior Citizen Dinner O’Clock.
The menu is moderately sized for a Chinese place, only a few pages long. It had a decent selection of non-​Canadianized Chinese food, which was nice to see, as well as some amusing items like the Explosion Sauce Pork Liver. Yup. My wife and I settled on an order of pork wontons to start, Shanghai fried rice, garlic broccoli, and shredded pork in a garlic chile sauce. We were eating light, obviously.
The wontons were definitely one of my favourite dishes that afternoon/​evening. A dozen fried wontons came with your typical sweet chile sauce on the side. The pork filling was moist and well seasoned, and the wonton wrapper itself was wonderfully crispy.
We had them hold the shrimp in the Shanghai fried rice due to my wife’s seafood allergy, and the rest was pretty standard with the telltale frozen veggies mixed in (ah, those perfect cubes of carrot), not much discernible chicken, and egg. It wasn’t anything special, and tasted fine.
The garlic broccoli was your typical broccoli in a white sauce, with onion and slivers of garlic. I would have preferred a heavier hand with the garlic and that it have been fried a golden brown instead of just being sauteed in the sauce, to have a more pronounced flavour.
The shredded pork helped save the meal from being mediocre on the whole, with tender strips of pork in a chile sauce that was the requested medium level of spiciness. Strips of bamboo and seaweed added further depth to the dish, without overpowering everything else.
Service was friendly and attentive, giving us a couple water top ups over the course of the meal.
All in all, it was a solid meal, but maybe to be blown away you have to order the Explosion Sauce Pork Liver.

General speaking, Canadian Chinese food is oil and sugar infill whereas this restaurant suppose the health one, u will get a very and proper Shanghai where classic southern Chinese food, they advance this theory –true taste food do not need too much dressing and delicious food could be health one

I’ll be back to try more. Marbled meat spicy soup was really really good. Exactly what I needed in this cold night. Staff were prompt and pleasant.
That I Was the only person in there not speaking mandarin was probably a good sign that the food is good. Drawing in lots of expats from China can only mean they’re doing something right.