Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Taste Of Shanghai, Ashfield

Seeing as we are a healthy Asian family with a healthy appetite for dumplings, I decided to take my family out for dumplings for my mother's birthday! Ashfield is close by, and there are lot of Shanghainese restaurants so naturally that was where we headed.

Shanghai style smoked fish in soy sauce, $10.80
I'm not sure if you all know, but us Shanghainese are very big on having a sweet element to our dishes. In a lot of the meat dishes that are soy-based, sugar is often added. I think this is how my extreme sweet tooth came to be. These pieces of fish had that extra sugar kick I was expecting and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

Grilled onion pancake, $6.80
I grew up eating these spring onion pancakes (my mum makes a mean spring onion pancake - I have cravings for them all the time!) so I had high expectations for these. The flavour profile was very different from the ones my mum makes and the pastry much flakier and fragrant from the oil (I'm suspecting it's because these are deep-fried). While I prefer my mother dearest's version, these definitely were one of the better ones I've had in Sydney.

Shredded pork with cabbage stir fried rice cakes, $10.80
I normally love nian gao, but these rice cakes were quite oily and lacked flavour. If you're feeling like eating rice cakes, I'd head over to New Shanghai just across the road because they do a fantastic stir fried rice cakes with XO sauce!

Beef and bean sprout stir-fried noodle, $10.80
These flat noodles definitely outshone the rice cakes. While the rice cakes weren't great and were quite stodgy, the flat noodles were had that wonderful smokiness that your get from the wok. If only there were more greens and less oil!

Mixed vegetable noodle soup, $9.80
I was surprised how good all the variety of mushrooms were in the mixed vegetables! It was quite salty but when eaten with the noodles and soup, it all balanced out pretty well.

Pan-seared pork dumplings, $9.80
These dumplings had an awesome crispy skin at the bottom and so much soup inside - just as good as the first time I had them here! The marks of a well made dumpling :D I hate it when I bite into the dumplings and it's all dry inside because the soup has leaked out from cracks in the skin...

Pan-fry pork buns with sesame, $9.80
I love sheng jian bao! There's just something about the fluffiness of the exterior... These ones were pretty decent, but for some reason, the bottoms were very thin and there was a lot of dough at the top! It's supposed to be the other way around so that was slightly odd for me while I was eating it. But the bottoms were crispy, and the meat inside was juicy so not much to complain about at all!

The overall bill was extremely cheap - the perks of eating Chinese food out, hey? :)

Taste of Shanghai
264 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield, NSW, 2131

Opening Hours
Daily from 10am until late

10 comments:

  1. You're lucky to live near Ashfied, but even MORE lucky that your mum makes your spring onion pancakes - I love them...LOVE them! I also like the rice cake dish that I had at New Shanghai...I love the springy texture of rice cakes.

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    1. I definitely feel lucky my mum has been able to make us spring onion pancakes - I should learn the recipe for myself some time soon :D The texture of rice cakes are awesome! New Shanghai's version is pretty heavenly.

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  2. I still haven't been to this place! Can't wait to try their dumplings!

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    1. There's a few other Taste Of Shanghai's around Sydney in World Square and Eastwood as well :) Dumplings are fantastic steamed/boiled or pan-fried don't you think? :D

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  3. I love Shen jian bao and xiao long bao too! And yes I'm also disappointed when there is no soup in them because that's really why we order them!

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    1. It's almost like a ritual burning your tongue for that soup! :P

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  4. This place if fantastic!! I go whenever I get a sudden craving for juicy xiao long bao. Cheap, but I still gasp when I compare prices with China haha ;)

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    1. Prices in China really cannot compare to that of Australia :( We can live like queens in China! ;)

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  5. i love this place for its cheap shanghainese feed! my fav is defs the rice cakes!

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