Pu'er, Waterloo

If there's one thing I can't resist, it's got to be yum cha style dumplings. So it was with great enthusiasm that we wandered over to Pu'er in Waterloo on the corner of Bourke and Danks street to have some steamed dumpling goodies at night. Pu'er offers a range of food from dumplings to larger share plates, all with a Western flair.

Scallop, $9.00

To start off with, I couldn't resist ordering the scallop dumplings - a Hong Kong style dumpling of prawn, scallop and baby bamboo all encased in a yellow egg pastry. Whilst the skin was a tad thick for my liking, the filling was delicious, had fantastic flavor and just reminds me why I'm a sucker for all dumplings with prawn and scallops.

Hong Kong mini burgers, $15.00

The waitress highly recommended these mini burgers and aren't they just adorable? Smaller than the size of my palm! Filled with a miniature panko crumbed pork fillet, a house smoked chilli paste, hoisin and baby cress, this cute number was a tasty little morsel that was not dry like I expected (being miniature and all). A bit oily, but at least the buns were deep-fried to a wonderful crisp and went really well with the filling inside.

Wagyu tacos, $16.00

Phew, these were spicier than expected! But that chilli kick paired very well indeed with the juicy wagyu beef. All wrapped by a soft bun, this is the perfect finger food snack to knock down whilst having a few drinks on a Friday night.

Three cup drunken duck, $26.00

Boy do you get bang for buck with these two giant duck legs sitting on the plate. Braised to perfection, the duck meat fell off the bone, yet still retained it's juiciness and flavor. Using traditional methods of Chinese braising with shao xing, soy and sugar, this dish really kicked home to my Shanghainese roots - almost like my mum makes at home ;)

Caramelised Berkshire pork belly, $24.00

And as always, it is always a bit risky to order things that are cooked on an often basis at home. I cannot fault the cooking, as the pork remained super tender and soft, but it was lacking that punch of strong soy and caramelized sugar I was looking for. The egg was a nice traditional touch but unfortunately was also lacking in flavor.

Chocolate brownie, $10.00

Whilst I don't normally tend to order brownies at restaurants as I find them to be more or less the same, our friendly waitress said these were normally a hit with the patrons so why not give it a go? For me, it was quite the standard brownie - chocolatey and dense. Perhaps a bit on the dry side but overall what you would expect from a chocolate brownie. I wasn't a fan of the red wine jus but it was the salted palm sugar ice-cream that blew me away. It was the perfect Asian twist on the standard Western salted caramel and truth be told, I forewent the brownie just to eat this ice-cream :P

Coconut & kafffir lime leaf sorbet, $10.00

This single dessert, hands down, was my favourite dish of the evening. Despite being stuffed to the brim (we were warned there was going to be a lot of food!), I managed to find extra stomach space just to eat this. The zing of the kaffir lime made the sorbet something special, seriously. It was even surrounded by pieces of young coconut - a definite win for me :D And the black sticky rice was subtlely sweet, still retained a nice bite to the palette and was wonerful with the sorbet or even dipped into the coconut water syrup on the side.

Quinton spoke very highly of the teas so how could we resist trying one? We told him to surprise us and he came out with the Osmanthus Phoenix ($9.00) which I unfortunately forgot to take a photo of :( But take my word that it was very pretty and beautifully presented! It was fragrant with the flavours of Osmanthus and had a delicate sweet aftertaste that lingered in the mouth. A good finish to our meal, and certainly helped with the digestion considering all that food we ate!

Overall, we ended our meal on a highlight with the sorbet which I would very, very happily demolish an entire pint of if I had one. The atmosphere was very cosy on a Thursday night, making it a cute little date place and service was nothing short of friendly. You even have the option of sitting half outside on the balcony! Which does have roofing by the way, so don't you worry about getting rained on :P Recommended if you're looking for a nice, relaxing night out with plenty of teas under your disposal!

Crystal Noir and friend dined as guests of Pu'er courtesy of Quinton Van Schalkwyk & Siev Gour of Pu'er. Opinions however, are entirely her own.

Pu'er

20A Danks St

Waterloo, NSW, 2017

Opening Hours

Tuesday-Friday
Lunch 12:00 - 3:00pm 

Dinner 6:00pm - late

Saturday & Sunday
12:00pm - late

Iron Chef Chinese Seafood Restaurant, Cabramatta

No, I didn’t see iron chef Chen Kenichi or Hiroyuki Sakai, or any of he iron chefs for that matter! My family and I went to Cabramatta for yum cha to show my grand aunt (who is visiting from China) around. Iron Chef definitely is our family's favourite yum cha restaurant at the moment :) I think I will just let the photos do the talking!

Particularly enjoyed the chicken feet which have been deep fried and then marinated in that gorgeous sauce (I know not everyone can bring themselves to eat that sot of thing haha but I love it!), the bird’s nest which had minced pork surrounded by a taro paste and then is deep fried with a batter to give it that nest-like look, and the crunchy skin of the suckling pig! Of course the mango pudding with condensed milk and mango pancake tasted excellent (it’s mango with evaporated milk and cream, what’s not to love?).

So are you a fan of the casual "grab what you want off the trolley" at yum cha or do you prefer ordering off a menu at restaurants? And have any of you tried chicken feet and loved it?

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

New Shanghai, Ashfield

Sunday family fun day! I think I wormed the idea of pan-fried buns into each member of my family's heads after I continually stated how much I really, really wanted them the other day. Next minute, we found ourselves at our local newly renovated New Shanghai for lunch on Sunday. Business there is doing well, and we had to wait in line for around 15 minutes before we were seated.

Stir-fried Chinese rice cake with shredded pork and vegetable in XO sauce, $10.80

I grew up eating rice cake, and I absolutely love how there's a bite to them. The XO sauce was delicious and this definitely ended up being one of our favourites.

Deep-fried calamari coated with salted duck yolk, $18.80

If there's one thing I love, it's salted duck yolk. I know a lot of people aren't fan of the duck yolks that are in moon cakes, but I find them so tasty! So when I saw this on the menu, I knew I had to order it. The salted duck yolk definitely added richness to what already was a rich dish. Tasty but I think this dish is best shared because of its heaviness ;)

Shanghai spring roll, $6.80

On the quest to find Sydney's best spring rolls. Alas, these were not meant to be. They were ok, but I don't think they have anything on the ones from Kwok Do in Burwood!

Deep-fried pastry filled with white shredded radish, dried shrimp & shallot, $8.80

I think we went a bit overboard with the deep-fried dishes... But my sister has an obsession with these so it had to be done! I'm normally impartial to these radish dimsims, but even I have to admit New Shanghai does them pretty well!

New Shanghai pan-fried pork buns, $8.80

This what what I was waiting for! But I think due to the rush that is lunch hour, the bottoms of these buns were nowhere near as caramelised as I would have normally liked :( Which was quite the disappointment. I've had them before at the Chatswood branch and they were great so I think we just got a bad batch!

Pan-fried pork dumpling, $8.00

These dumplings however, had a beautiful crunchy bottom! And they skin was thin, yet not thin enough so that they would crack and all the soup would leak out. You are no pan-fried bun, but you dumplings will have to do for today.

Mini pork wonton soup (short soup), $4.80

With all the greasiness that came with the dishes we ordered, my parents decided we needed some soup to help break through all that oil. Definitely loved the soup! Though do I really want to know how much sodium is in it? Probably not!

New Shanghai
273 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield, NSW, 2131

Opening Hours
Open daily from 10:00am - 10:00pm

Taste of Shanghai, Ashfield

After a gruelling day on a site visit to Cockatoo Island, the boy and I make a pitstop at Ashfield for some dumplings before his touch football game at Henley Park. We were there before 6 and easily nabbed some seats. I had been on an island all day and the winds weren't very favourable and left me numb all over! I was definitely in need of some heart warming food.

Braised pork belly noodle soup, $10.80

I was tossing up between this and the spicy beef belly noodle soup (BEEF BELLY! I don't think I've ever eaten that) but I ended up going with this one. The first thing that hit me when this arrived at the table was LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT BOWL OF NOODLES! But I was really looking forward to digging into that plate of juicy looking pork. Braised pork belly is a very traditional Shanghainese dish and I have it quite often at home. While this version was nice, it didn't quite meet the standards of my parent and grandparent's which I really do adore. The texture of the noodles were lovely but it had to be eaten with the pork belly which gave the noodles that extra oomph that the broth was lacking.

Look at that fatty goodness! Cannot be good for my cardiovascular health...

Pan seared pork dumpling, $9.80

While the noodles were nothing special, these were very good! Just look at the oil glistening on their skins! The bottom was fried until very crispy and had just enough char without being burnt. The dumplings themselves had plenty of broth inside which was very flavoursome. Dipped in vinegar, these were very tasty indeed.

While it was relatively empty when we arrived, by the time we finished and paid for our meal the restaurant was getting quite full and there were still people slowly trickling in. It normally does get very busy and the restaurant always seems to have good business.

If you're in the area and looking for some good dumplings, you know where to stop by.

Taste of Shanghai
264 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield, NSW, 2131
9798 2877

Trading hours
Daily 10am until late