Song Qi — Restaurant in Região Imediata de São Paulo

Terribly bad experience, unbelievably bad chinese food! First of all, my friend insisted to try, as there are no good chinese restaurant in Sao Paulo with good ambience, so we did; we booked for 6people, our table was kind of small, it was for 4, with 2 chairs at the sides. the cocktail with gin was actually ok; we ordered two wines but then the sommelier came and said no more bottle of the same so we were forced to change our wine; so..... another mistake there.

we ordered dimsun, Oh my God! just bad all the way; the Dimsun w shrimp was the only eatable, but the wrapping was just too chewy, which we all know it supposed to be thin and melt in the mouth; the dimsun with lamb, someone felt like powder that just dismantled in my mouth with a funny taste and the other dimsun just real bad;

we ordered the scrumbled rice with egg which is pretty traditional, and noodle; which you can tell it was scrumbled with a supermarket sauce with nothing much special about it;

the Pekin Duck, the pancake came dry and thick, it was cold and some of them dismantled! well for those that don' t know, the pancake of the duck is the most important part which supposed to be transparent lucid and thin like papel, anyway, the sauce was also very salty; we later saw each pancake were CHARGED additionally......

the Final strike was the spicy and sour soap, which was dense and real salty, i frankly don't know what it really was. the whole evening was a waste of time, money and stomach; it's a real pity as we all went out specially in our real bz schedule but at least this is a real NO GO.

the ambience is nice comparing with the rest of the chinese restaurant in Brazil, as there are no good ambience chinese restaurant in brazil, is not chique as Hakkasan in London or Miami; I am so surprised it was packed, maybe it's because of the investos is Felipe Massa as they kept on mentioning his name from the sommelier to the waiter or maybe brazilian really don't know what are real chinese food, or maybe we are just too spoiled for good foods.

Big...

My wife followed this place that is popular on Instagram and it was a disappointment. We came in between lunch and dinner and thus it was not an issue of noise, or delay, but 100% an issue of execution of the menu.

We opted for the dim sum sampler to start. The wrappers were clearly made by hand and the difficult har gow quite nice. The vegetarian dumpling was two toned and well executed, the ground lamb one with a black wrapper a bit doughy but forgivable. The dipping sauces were fair, the lettuce wraps decent, though it is hard to have all perfect butter lettuce leaves. Not sure if the beef was “velveted” as the chew was a bit off putting but the flavor, the texture, the nigella seed sprouts and pine nuts delicious, and the sauce reasonable and not overwhelming.

Whether the choice to have pad Thai on the menu was a poor one or not, either way it can be difficult to execute. First, the texture was that of scrambled eggs mostly, no fish sauce, no tamarind, and the sauce which should drape but not overwhelm was effectively sucked into overworked rice noodles. Truly a disappointment visually as well as in taste.

My kung pao had decent flavor, but it was clear that it was overdone, the sauce evaporated, and although the pork was cooked well (did it get the oil pass through and velveting?) there was less than a half teaspoon of sauce and none on the meat itself. The meat was nearly black and the chiles black as well.

The side of basic fried rice was the best dish. Most grains with the touch of wok hei, not oily, perfect seasoning, and what my wife ended up eating in disappointment.

Although she enjoyed her cocktail, and I my two caipirinhas, we both felt that the experience was poorly executed and we both failed to understand the hype.

————— I appreciate the words of the restaurant and their understanding. I believe there can be bad days, and especially at times in between service...

I was walking home and stopped by this place for a late lunch. And honestly, I was really disappointed in the food.

The awesome: I had the Don Palomita to drink and it’s one of my favorite drinks I’ve had this year. I like the different textures between the foam, drink and caramel popcorn. And the flavors were magnificent. I might go back tomorrow just for the drink.

Unfortunately that’s where it stopped:

the fried rice look good, but had no flavor and was so dry. It needed some salt, msg, sesame oil and it would have made such a difference. the black tiger prawns really confused me. It was the most expensive meat in their wok menu, but it tasted and looked like bland shrimp. I got the honey flavoring and honestly the breading was soggy by time I got it. It was reminiscent of Panda Express honey walnut shrimp, but I rather have the honey walnut shrimp. the deluxe dim sum was beautiful to look it, but all the pieces were soooo dry. Without the sauces it was like eating sand.

I’ll just assume I came on a bad day. The place has a not hat policy, which is fine. But if you’re going to be that serious about dress attire, make sure the food matches it.

Total bill was about 340 Brazilian reels for drink, wok, rice and sparkling water. So definitely not a...