Taste of Shanghai - Ashfield

Taste of Shanghai Restaurant

To satisfy a craving for oily yet yummy food, my partner and I decided to dine at one of the Shang restaurants in Ashfield for lunch. When you think about it, the food at these places must be awesome when there are so many different Shang places to choose from in Ashfield, and you still have a little wait before you are seated in a cozy little restauarant. When we looked at the menu, countless things came up on our ordering agenda - yet, with just two of us, we were limited with the number of dishes we could eat.

Nonetheless, against my advice, my partner and I managed to order too much food... again.

First, our entree of chicken feet in vinegary sauce ($8.80). Understandably, some people dislike this dish. But luckily, my partner and I both enjoy the vinegary flavour and the mewing over the joints. To justify the amount of food ordered, my partner tried to convince me that he thought the dish only came with TWO chicken feet (as he only saw two on the menu...which was false anyway), making it a rip-off (ie. two chicken feet for $8.80). I saw straight through his lie.

Chicken feet in pickle sauce - $8.80

When at a Shang restaurant, you can't get away with not ordering Shao Long Bao ($10.80). We ordered the ones with crab meat flavour. These little dumplings were very flavoursome, the skin around it just the right thickness, and the soup just explodes in your mouth. And the crabby orangey stuff that clogs your arteries....Mmm... so deliciousness!!!Still... can't be healthy.

Steamed mini pork buns with crab meat flavour - $10.80

We also orders pan-fried pork dumplings ($8.80). These were sooo unexpectedly juicy, the flavour just explodes! (and literally so!). My partner bit into one of these and the juices hit the poor customer to my right (yes! across the table!!!). We just went on eating and pretended nothing had happened :)

pan-fried pork dumplings - $8.80

And now for the dish I thought we didn't need, but my partner was super convinced he could smash (and need I say, he was subsequently proved wrong) - it was the Shanghai pan-fried pork buns ($8.80 for a whole 8 of them!!!). These were quite more filling and heavy and larger compared to the Xiao Long Bao - and hence, there was NO WAY we could finish these. Nonetheless, I'm secretely glad we did order them as they were so crispy and crunchy on the bottom of the outside, soft and bun-ny on the top of the outside, nice and porky on the inside, and so nicely filled with (fatty) tastey porky msg-y clear soup on the inside. They were so fresh and hot they managed to burn my partner's tongue! (and my partner eats everything super hot having worked in a kitchen before).

pan-fried pork buns - $8.80

On the whole, it was a very satisfying meal. We took most of the pan-fried buns home and when we re-pan fried it, they were still deliciousness~ Service-wise... what can you expect from an Asian place? and ambiance? there must be some delightfulness of being cramped up in a little restaurant!!! (atleast gives you that "asian-ness" feel)

Ratings:
Food - 8/10
Service - 5/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 8/10
Overall - 27/40

Taste of Shanghai
264 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield, NSW, 2131
Tel: (02) 9798 2877