Want a relaxed, retro hangout spot? Shang High offers the perfect ambiance
I was in the middle of a shoot in Dhanmondi when the day took a familiar turn. The light was perfect, the talent was cooperative for once, and then my photographer, Shourav, announced that he was starving. Anyone who has worked with a hungry photographer knows it is easier to negotiate with a CNG during a monsoon. So, I gave in and went looking for something quick, warm, and pocket-friendly.
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That is how I ended up walking into the Dhanmondi outlet of Shang High, a place I had heard about for a while, but never actually visited. The name had been floating around since their early days at Naveed's Comedy Club. Back then, it was just a food cart tucked into a lively corner of the space, the kind of setup where you stand for ten minutes, order a plate of dumplings. Students, office workers, random Gulshan wanderers, everyone seemed to hover around that stall. It was cheap, quick and surprisingly good.
The shift from cart to full restaurant felt almost too quick for Dhaka's usual pace of food evolution. The place we decided to eat, went from a cart to one outlet, then more, and now four across the city, including Gulshan, Banani, Mirpur and this one in Dhanmondi. People often assume success in the food scene comes from grand ideas or heavy investor pockets, but what happened here was much simpler. They kept the prices bearable, with consistent flavours in their food.
Walking into their Dhanmondi store, the first thing that really gets you is just how retro the whole place feels. The colours aren't shouting at you to notice them, but you can't help but spot them instantly. There's a claw machine hanging by the entrance, and an actual arcade game right beside it. The seating is simple, like the kind of place where people tend to just show up to hang out.
Now, by night time, the vibe is a whole different ball game. Same colours but now, with a different kind of energy when the lights warm up and the neighbourhood starts to wind down a bit. The space gets louder but not in a bad way, the retro bits start to feel like they're a part of the place rather than just some tacked on decoration. It does not overplay "nostalgia," just giving Dhaka a down-to-earth kind of ambience.
There is something refreshing about watching a local brand grow without losing the core of what made it work. In a city where restaurants often inflate themselves into something unrecognisable within a year, Shang High has held on to that original energy of feeding people without overcomplicating the experience. The Dhanmondi outlet, in particular, feels like the most honest extension of that journey.
The place offered a small reminder of how Dhaka's food scene thrives when simplicity is given a chance to grow. From a tiny cart at a comedy club to several outlets across the city, the story has been anything but dramatic, yet that might be exactly why it works.
Sometimes, a place only needs to serve good food at a fair price and understand the city it feeds. Shang High seems to have figured that out early, and the rest has followed naturally.
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