Go down a narrow dark alley and then up a flight of stairs in an old building in Lan Kwai Fong - a popular area for eating and drinking in Hong Kong - and you'll find Fa Zu Jie, or French Concession, a private kitchen serving innovative Shanghainese in French-style cuisine.

There is absolutely no signage on the main road to indicate the existence of this lovely dining venue, but the friendly staff at the Fa Zu Jie will e-mail you the menu and a map with directions once you've made your booking.

You can see the dining area and outdoor terrace from the sitting-out area in Lan Kwai Fong. I had seen it many times and always wondered how to reach it. Now I know.

When you first see the large white door at the top of the stairs on the first floor, you may be a bit uncertain as to whether you've arrived at the right place. Again, no obvious signage.

However, once the door opens, you enter what feels like someone's living room with a large open kitchen taking up one side. There are empty wine bottles covering much of the shelf space on the other side of the room, as well as a selection of books and magazines for diners to browse through. They don't charge corkage here, so bring a bottle or two to enjoy with your meal.

A six-course set menu of Chinese-French food is served each night for HK$628 ($81) per person. The names of some dishes are not the easiest to understand as they are a clever play on words. None of us were quick-witted enough to figure out what we were going to eat from the names alone - luckily, our server was there to tell us what we would eat and how it was prepared.

Unfortunately, this was some-times hard to hear over the whirring of the air conditioning unit. It would also have helped to have more light so that we could see the food better.

We started with "Sea Genius. Mr Da Lian. All Are Half Drunk", which turned out to be alcohol-soaked abalone and octopus with fig. The Shaoxing wine-flavored abalone and octopus were both soft and tender and were a good start to the meal. This was followed by the "Pavilion", a baked Shanghainese dumpling made with eggplant, bamboo shoots, and Sichuan chili oil. The chili oil makes your tongue go a little numb, but it doesn't linger for too long.

The "Shell. A Treasure Forest Inside" dish was a stuffed shell-shaped pasta served with apple puree and a house-made eight-treasure sauce. This dish was nicely presented, but needed a flavor boost.

The "Shaking Sleeve. Charcoal Fragrance from a Farm House" was a Shanghainese-style braised noodle dish with smoky duck meat and lots of mushrooms. There was a theatrical blast of flame from the kitchen when they were preparing this dish.

"Soft Pluma. Soft Rice. Fragrance" is Fa Zu Jie's take on the classic Shanghainese vegetable rice dish. The raw rice is sauteed before cooking so the grains don't become mushy with further cooking. Yunnan ham, bok choi and oil are added to the rice to finish this take on a traditional dish.

Dessert, named "Red Dress. White Hat" was made with straw-berries, osmanthus-flavored meringue, and fermented glutinous rice cream. It had a good balance of textures and flavors without being overly sweet.

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(China Daily 06/21/2014 page12)