On Fumin Road's Bar Strip, Laizhou Bar Earns Its Stripes with a Bone-In Pork Cutlet
Fumin Road is packed with bars, and Laizhou Bar is often treated as just a place to grab a quick bite between drinks. But a bone-in Iberian ham and cheese pork cutlet is enough to make you reconsider what this kitchen is actually capable of.
Fumin Road is the busiest stretch of Shanghai's nightlife scene, bar after bar lined up, with most of the foot traffic there for the drinks. Laizhou Bar sits right in the middle of it all, easy to write off as a place to grab something quick before heading out — which is exactly why it's underrated. What comes out of the kitchen takes itself far more seriously than the street around it would suggest.
The clearest proof is a bone-in pork cutlet: the Iberian Ham & Cheese Tonkatsu (¥148), essentially a cordon bleu with the bone left in, stuffed with cheddar, breaded and fried until crisp on the outside while staying juicy inside, finished with a dusting of Parmesan. The mushroom cream sauce poured over it is rich and heavy, strong enough to hold its own against every bite. Bone-in cordon bleu isn't an easy technique to pull off — this dish shows the kitchen isn't afraid to flex.
The menu itself leans into an all-day dining-and-drinking concept — solid enough for a proper meal during the day, easy to pair with drinks at night — spanning Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and local Shanghainese flavors, while also splitting attention between Chinese and Western dishes, both handled with a decent level of skill. The Fried Chicken with Crispy Rice (¥78) uses Qingyuan chicken, firm and well-marbled, marinated in shrimp paste and fried to a golden crisp, served not over plain rice but over crispy rice crust — the crunch hits before any softness from the rice. The sauce sits somewhere between fish-fragrant and sweet-and-sour, an approachable balance. If they served the crispy rice crust and plain rice half-and-half so you could mix the sauce through both, the dish would feel more complete — though as it stands, the value for money is already hard to beat.
The Stir-Fried Brisket Fat & Tender Beef (¥88) is a classic Sichuan drinking dish — the fatty short rib fried until crisp, paired with tender loin, with chili and spices fried until fragrant and intense. It's the kind of small plate that gets wiped clean fast. The Spring Bamboo & Scallop Claypot Rice (¥98) is a mashup of yanduxian soup and claypot rice, with spring bamboo shoots, scallops, and flying fish roe, plus Anhui-style marinated goose intestines hidden in the bowl — salty, savory, with a bit of crunch. It takes time to prepare, but it's worth the wait, and works well split between two or three people.
Several other dishes hold their own too: the Spicy Skewered Grass Carp (¥68) goes the skewer route, with gelatinous, sinewy fish skin paired with tofu and lotus root; the Claypot Crispy Turbot with Lily Bulb (¥98) and Creamy Butter Prawns (¥98) play it straight with seasonal seafood; the Balsamic Crispy Hairtail Rolls (¥68) come out lightly crisp, sweet and sour with a touch of spice — very much in line with Shanghainese flavor profiles. For dessert, the Sichuan Pepper Chocolate Trio with Jiaoyu Gin (¥38) works the bar's own Jiaoyu Gin into the dessert itself — the cake is light, not overly sweet, with the aroma of green Sichuan peppercorn running through every bite, paired with dark chocolate for a thoughtful finish. On the drinks side, there are refreshing spring-summer specials too, like the Sparkling Guava and Sparkling Wampee (¥38 each).
Laizhou Bar probably isn't the first name that comes to mind on Fumin Road, but that bone-in pork cutlet, paired with a plate of short rib that's impossible to stop eating, is already reason enough to make a special trip. The restraint in the kitchen's technique is obvious — and on a street built around the atmosphere of drinking, that restraint is a rare thing to find.
