PingRang Yu Liu Restaurant was a recommendation by a friend that I used to work with who lives in Shanghai. It also has the bonus of being right outside the nearest subway stop which was amazing because it was raining like crazy and the rain in China is a bit…sticky.
This restaurant offers a brief and tiny glimpse into North Korean culture. According to him and their website, the servers are flown in from North Korea where this restaurant serves as an internship for them in university in Pyongyang. A quote I wish I could take credit for on this place, “These women are beautiful…and maybe spies.”
Also you need to come for the once-per-day show at 7:30 where they each demonstrate their skills ranging from magic, sick drum beats, to karaoke. I put together a quick video of some of the performances.
They are also pretty friendly, though I think we were the first Americans they had served in awhile. I really couldn’t get a read on whether that had a positive or negative affect on their opinions of us which is probably a good thing.
The menu is also huge and their pride is meat imported from North Korea. Personally I only have eyes for hot pot so that’s exactly what I did.
The cost was very good too, I paid for dinner for 5 with several rounds of drinks for about 80 USD and there was too much food. Hard to beat those margins(I know there’s a dark joke here, not gonna touch it).
At the end of the night we were also given some North Korean tourism brochures which I’m sure are also perfectly accurate. You can start reading about how these were translated here.
So I’m not really familiar with Korean food in general but this place did hit the spot and after researching some more it made a list on Trip Adviser of the best Korean restaurants in Shanghai so if you are so inclined you can take their word for it over mine. I say go for the novelty as that is basically what I love in a restaurant anyway.
If you had a tepid enjoyment of this review you may like a couple of my others:
Team Strawberry Seahorses 