Shanghai Memory - Ashfield

My hubby and I decided to eat out one night and headed for Ashfield. There, we seemed to have spotted the new kid on the block - a Shanghainese restaurant that we had not eaten at or even seen previously. We entered Shanghai Memory cautiously as though there were patrons in there, there were relatively more customers in its neighbouring restaurants. Nevertheless, we were quickly greeted by friendly staff.

We ordered a classic shanghainese appetiser - toasted flour tendons "with full flavour sauce". What this is is really just bean curd type things drenched in sauce and oil and served with other fungi and beans. It's a really tasty dish being kind of sweet and all, but it might be an acquired taste. Me, being half-shang, really love this dish... yet, due to it's oiliness, it's not something that can be eaten often.

toasted flour tendons with full flavour sauce

My hubby requested pork and vege wonton soup. This was really packed full of MSG. Or maybe it's because I have made this dish since I was a young kid and every time, the home-made version never included MSG, that when I took my first mouthful, I was knocked off my feet. BUT - my hubby seemed to love it. So *shrugz* - to each their own.

pork and vege wonton soup

We also ordered pan fried pork dumplings. These were OK. The flour coating was a little thicker than I would have liked, but it was nicely crunchy on the bottom and flavoursomely porky inside.

pan fried pork dumplings

Last but not least, the waitress' recommendation - spare ribs wrapped in this rice thing which was then steamed. I can't describe it properly, but taste reminds me of the rice dumplings we make for Dragon Boat Festival except that the rice is not the sticky glutinous rice you normally have. The spare ribs were soooo tender they basically shredded and melted in your mouth. It was an interesting recommendation and I could see that other tables had likewise been sucked into ordering this dish.

steamed pork spare ribs

All up, it was a cheap and relatively decent meal. My hubby had a relatively unpleasant experience following the meal - not sure if it was due to the food or the oil, the beers, or just sheer exhaustion... But don't let that stop you from trying to foods - it was kinda tasty afterall.

Ratings:
Food - 7.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 6.5/10
Value for money -7/10
Overall - 28/40

Shanghai Memory
267B Liverpool Rd,
Ashfield, Sydney
NSW 2131
Tel:(02) 9716 6085

Eaton Restaurant (2) - Ashfield

My hubby and I mentioned "crab congee" in a conversation to our Melbournian friends. This happened to be a term that they had never heard of. As such, we decided to take them to supper at Eaton Restaurant for some crab congee.

Our two friends had conveniently eaten 2 peking ducks for dinner (amongst 4 people) and were clutching their stomachs in fullness. Yet - when faced with super smooth rich congee filled with super sweet live mudcrab essence, they could not resist but lap up a few bowls. Yes - the congee is AWESOMENESS!

crab congee

My hubby couldn't resist but to order his favourite dish at this restaurant - duo of noodles (vermicelli and thin rice noodle) with XO sauce. This is pretty fantastic - not overlly oily, not too dry. XO sauce bought along a hint of chilliness (until my partner adds heaps of additional XO sauce to his bowl :P).

Duo of noodles with XO sauce

Another unique aspect of coming here for supper is the dessert. Yes, there's normally fruit, but they also have this bittermelon jelly. Yes - bittermelon. This brings a twinge of bitterness to the smooth jelly subtle sweetness. Topped with coconut milk, it is an awesome dessert. YUM. Our friends (where were clutching their stomachs at the beginning of the meal) still made themselves polish it off despite protests from their stomachs.

Bittermelon Jelly

Yup - I love this place for supper. One of the best!

Ratings:
Food - 9/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 7.5/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 30.5/40

Eaton Restaurant
313 Liverpool Road
Ashfield
NSW 2131
tel: (02) 9798 2332

Shanghai Night (3) - Ashfield

It's been so hot lately. It seems to have zapped away our appetite. So when deciding where to eat, my partner and I opted for something simple and cheap.

Hence, Ashfield we went!
Pleasantly surprised to find Shanghai Night to be packed FULL of people yet to be at a decent arctic temperature, we settled in quickly and ordered a few dishes.

Shanghai Night

One was my partner's favourites (he does have many favourites though) - Chicken and corn soup. He decided to go for the one with seafood ($4.80). This was chicken and corn soup cooked to a nice consistency of chicken broth, corn and egg bits, with seafood extender, small prawns and scallop bits scattered throughout. It was very much quite sweet and quite yum.

chicken and corn soup with seafood - $4.80

I decided to be daring and ordered the fish dumplings ($6.80). I ordered the small size (comprised of 12) and I ordered them steamed (as opposed to fried). This was interesting. Kind of like eating fish balls inside a slightly too thick flour wrapping. To be completely honest, it was kind of floury gooey ishly dense and hence, didn't taste very nice on its own. However, it does redeem itself somewhat after you dunk it in the vinegar.

Fish dumplings (small) - $6.80

Last but not least, we had the mini steamed pork buns ($6.80). The skin to this was again, a bit thicker and more floury than I would have liked. The meat this time was a bit coarse tasting but the flavour was there. Again, tastes better with the vinegar :)

Mini steamed pork buns - $6.80

So the food wasn't awesome this time. But the price! We got out of there - both full, and got change for $20. Awesome!

Ratings:
Food - 6.5/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 8.5/10
Overall - 27.5/40

Shanghai Night
275 Liverpool Road,
Ashfield
NSW 2131
Tel: (02) 9798 8437

Taste of Shanghai (3) - Ashfield

For a girls catchup dinner, my friends and I decided to do it cheap but tasty at Taste of Shanghai in Ashfield. As there was only 3 of us, we decided to order three dishes.

We ordered a noodle dish - the shredded duck and veges stir fried noodles. This was pretty averagely tasty. A little on the oily side. Duck didn't taste like much but... I'm a noodle fan - I like pretty much all noodles.

shredded duck noodles

We also decided to be healthy and order a vegetable dish. It turned out to be possibly the most unhealthy dish of the night! It was bok choi with tofu puffs and the layer of oil that came with this dish??? Unbelievable. I reckon it was more than 1 cm thick. Underneath all the oil, it tasted like... well... still oil LOL

veges (super oily - do not order)

Last but not least, how could we come to Ashfield, eat Shang, and not have steamed mini pork buns? The mini pork buns here were really quite good. A good flour wrap/soup/pork ratio and it was really really tasty. Pork-tasting and not overly oily.

steamed mini pork buns - $8.80

So the lesson to be learnt here? Go all out on the dumplings and the meat!

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 6.5/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 26.5/40

Taste of Shanghai
264 Liverpool Road
Ashfield
NSW 2131
tel: (02) 9798 2877

Taste of Shanghai (2) - Ashfield

Taste of Shanghai

My partner and I were both craving ribs. HUGE rack of ribs. We've been craving ribs for many weeks, even months now. How on earth did we end up in Ashfield eating Shang instead of a huge rack of tender juicy pork ribs???

It was my fault. I was craving ribs, but I was also craving sweet black sesame dessert dumpling. So whilst I was doing my web-search on ribs, I also happened to "accidently" stumble upon some awesomely enticing photos of black sesame dessert dumplings which just so happened to also house some awesomely enticing photos of blue-swimmer crab vermicelli in a paper fire-pot. Amazingly, after much debate, the ribs plan (though still at the back of out minds) was momentarily aborted and we found ourselves at 'Taste of Shanghai' in Ashfield.

For a suburb which abounds in Shanghainese food, I was quite amazed to find a line at this place. We had to wait awhile before we got seated, adding to our anticipation of awesome blue-swimmer crab vermicelli in a paper hot pot setting. The anticipation ... then the disappointment. "Sorry, blue swimmer crab sold out". NOOOOO - how could they do that to us? I think it was the anticipation of awesome crab vermicelli which allowed my partner to talk me into getting the crab vermicelli anyway - even if set-priced small blue swimmer crab was being substituted with $25.80 / 500g live mud crab. I wasn't surprised when the crab vermicelli didn't come in the paper hot-pot version I expected but instead, came in a normal glass plate. Expected - but still slightly disappointing.

However, the dish itself wasn't disappointing. The vermicelli was sooooo soaked in crab roe and crab juices. So tasty, so saucy, so delicious thick crab-tasting vermicelli. YUM. The crab itself was also pretty good. The crab was fresh and meaty and shalloty and roe-y flavoured cooked pretty much just right. The only downside to this was that the shell was SOOO thick. The kitchen probably tried to crack it but failed. I couldn't. My lovely partner could - but he complained about a sore wrist for the rest of the night. It was worth it I think :)

Live mud crab with vermicelli - $25.80/500g

We also ordered the steamed mini pork buns ($8.80). The filling was extremely tasty. Juicy rich pork flavour with porky, slightly oily slightly tongue-burning soup. The dumpling wrapper was less thick that the other Shang places (eg. New Shanghai, Shanghai Night) in Ashfield, but thicker than the ones at Din Tai Fung. So both my partner and I quite liked this combination of dumpling wrap and pork meat and juices. It was really quite YUM.

Steamed Mini Pork Buns - $8.80

My partner also couldn't resist but order the Chef's Recommendation of Garlic Bamboo Chicken ($16.80). Many tables were ordering this dish. It was everywhere! Deep-fried, crispy, lots of shattered bamboo garlicy bits showered everywhere. For not one second did I think this was a healthy dish. It was awefully tasty though. Tender chicken meat covered in unhealthy (yet surprising not oily) batter. Interesting dish.

Garlic Bamboo Chicken - $16.80

Last but first - (ie. even though we told the waitress that we wanted this dessert to be served last, it came first) were my red bean and sesame glutinous sweet dessert balls covered in powered yellow mung beans. These were warm, soft, chewy, and sweet. I love the sesame filling just flowing and oozing out. YUM. But by the end of the crab, I just couldn't really actually eat anything.

Red bean black sesame sweet glutinous dessert balls - $8.80

Overall, the food was quite excellent. Delicious. Yet, the service was definately so so. The couple next to us left coz the food came out so slow. They were replaced by an immensely loud talkative couple who basically gave us a life story unintentionally coz they were sitting so close. So I guess that service and ambiance was slightly poor. I'd probably come back just for the food though :)

Ratings:
Food - 9/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 29/40

Taste of Shanghai
264 Liverpool Road
Ashfield
NSW 2131
tel: (02) 9798 2877

Shanghai Night (2) - Ashfield

For a monthly get-together with a few ex-uni buddies, but opting for a slightly more budget yet just as tasty venue, we decided to dine at Shanghai Night at Ashfield.

When we got there, dumplings (of more than one type) was a must. But in addition to the normal dumpling choices, we also decided on the combination cold noodles ($7.50). This was a refreshingly awesome mix of cold egg noodles, cucumber and pork drizzled with an awesomely thick and rich peanuty sauce. YUM. However, too much of this dish would leave you feeling stuffed, starched up and slightly sick.

Combination Cold noodles - $7.50

We couldn't really come to this restaurant and not order the steamed mini pork buns could we? And so, eight plump, juicy, soupy, steamingly hot and flavoursome pork buns were gobbled up by us. Compared to Din Tai Fung (at World Square), these have a much thicker outer flour casing, but also have a more full on meat flavour (whereas Din Tai Fung ones give off a more subtle flavour). Being super soupy and super hot, be sure to not burn your tongue on these!

Steamed mini pork buns - $6.50

We also ordered the steamed vegetarian dumplings ($6.50). I really like steamed vegetarian dumplings but I don't know, the flour casing of these were slightly too thick for me to fully enjoy the flavours of the greens and carrot and vermicelli mix that they enveloped. Still nice and slightly healthier than the pork dumplings, they did taste slightly, just slightly, bland.

Steamed Vegetarian dumplings - $6.50

Last but not least - the pan-fried pork buns ($8.50). It takes a good 20 minutes for these to come out. My excuse for them is because they have to slowly heat them up on a fry-pan until it's whole insides and outs and lefts and rights are all hot hot hot. But that's probably false - there's probably more to the cooking process than just pan-frying. Nonetheless, regardless of how these are cooked, they are always super crunchy on the golden brown bun side, soft (and slightly oily) sesamed on the non-golden brown bun side, and awesomely tastey soupy meaty flavoursomely tongue-burningly good on the inside. All adds up to one world - Deliciousness!

Pan-fried pork buns - $8.50

I love Ashfield and I love Shanghainese food. It's always good for a cheap tasty meal. The only down side is probably that it's quite oily (and also dirty - but ignorance is bliss).

Ratings:
Food - 9/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 9/10
Overall - 30/40

Shanghai Night
275 Liverpool Rd,
Ashfield
NSW 2131
Tel: (02) 9798 8437

Eaton Restaurant - Ashfield

Midnight snack cravings always take us to either Ashfield or Beverly Hills. We decided that for tonight, Beverly Hills was slightly too far and hence, we ended up at Eaton House. When we first stepped in, we were taken back by the renovations. The shop used to look slightly run down and dodgy, with names of dishes stuck all over the walls. This night, we stepped in and it looked ... nice. Fresh paint on the walls and yeh - very... restauranty feel.

A must order every time we dine here is the "XO fried double noodles". Essentially, this is rice noodles and vermicelli tossed with veges and pork and seasoned with XO sauce. My partner is a lover of XO sauce and hence, and extra plate of this was in order (and yes, given the opportunity, he would eat the sauce by itself). According to my parnter and his brother, it is super super hard to cook this dish as if you don't put enough oil in it, everything sticks to the wok, and if you put too much oil in it, it becomes way too oily to be tasty. However, Eaton house does this dish very well - not too oily and extremely tasty.

XO double fried noodles

Legendary XO sauce

Congee is always an awesome choice when we midnight snack asian style. Crab congee is usually delicious and sweet - but comes in a bowl that's way too big for our party of (not extremely hungry) four. Hence, we opted for the next best - thousand egg congee with extra thousand egg. Whilst this would be pretty awesome congee by normal Australian standards, it was a level under what was tasted at the awesome hawker stall in Singapore. Yummy nonetheless though.

Thousand Egg Congee

Lastly, we ordered a plate of fried flat rice noodles with beef. This was ordinary and like pretty much any other beef flat rice noodle. Quite a good addition to a midnight snack though.

fried beef flat rice noodle

Service here is never too good unless you're a "regular". The seafood here is always fresh though. If you have a chance (and am willing to spend a bit), definately go for the XO pipis with thin rice noodle base and the crab congee. They used to give fruit and a bitter melon jelly (which was super awesome) after the meal, but this night, we only got watermelon. Always satisfies a midnight craving, I think we will definately be back.

Ratings:
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 7.5/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 30/40

Eaton Restaurant
313 Liverpool Road
Ashfield
NSW 2131
tel: (02) 9798 2332

New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant - Ashfield

New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant

After our hefty rack of ribs in the afternoon, both my partner and I were both not hungry. We went to Sushi Suma - they were packed. We went to Sushi Tengoku - they were booked out. We went to Newtown - there were people everywhere. We ended up going to Ashfield. Luckily, we still weren't hungy. LOL

Our non-hungerness meant that we didn't have to order much food. As such, we decided on 2 soups and a vegetarian dumpling.

The first soup to come was the deep fried bean curd and vermicelli soup ($3.80). I had expected a thicker consistency. However, this wasn't as bad as I thought. Not oily-ful like expected, this soup was quite subtle and did not give off an msg-filled vibe. I also love vermicelli, so that was nice. However, the soup wasn't great or anything.

Tofu vermicelli soup - $3.80

The crab meat with sweet corn soup ($4.20) was much better. Came our sizzling hot. Tasted delicious. Lots of floating egg bits, little bits of chicken and little bits of seafood extenders. Not overly corn-flavoured, but still, very yum.

crab meat sweet corn soup

Last of all, we decided on steamed vegetarian dumplings as opposed to the mini pork buns we normally order. The vegetarian dumplings ($6.80) came out looking like flowers (suiting and complementing the chinese name of this dumpling very well). Looking slightly tacky, the flower-like shape of the dumpling has another downfall. It makes the top of this dumpling way too thick and floury. Other than that, there's vermicelli, bits of mushroom, tiny bits of carrot and a chives type substance inside. It feels much more clean and healthy - very well suited to our non-hungry appetites.

Steamed vegetarian dumplings - $6.80

The waitress here communicated to us in her best English. Other than ordering then bringing food to us, no interaction ensued. But that is probably to be expected at places such as these.

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 6.5/10
Value for money - 9/10
Overall - 29/40

New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant
273 Liverpool Road
Ashfield
NSW 2131
Tel: (02) 9797 7284

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

Shanghai Night - Ashfield

I was craving for dumplings since our last visit to Din Tai Fung. And so, Shanghai Night became my tunnel-visioned destination.

Shanghai Night.

We got there early in the evening, and yet the little store was already buzzing with activity. Although the menu on the wall was written in Chinese, and my ability to read these hieroglyphic-like characters is limited, we managed to get a few delicious eats on the table.

Decor of Shanghai Night.

Our order looked a bit like this:

The green bean starch sheet cold noodle ($11.80) came first. Didn't look spectacular, but tasted quite alright (could be because we were extremely hungry). It bought along with it an immensely strong sesame oil. A was a bit disappointed at this because, although the green bean starch sheets are an old time favourite of mine, I preferred the peanuty-based sauce offered at some other Shanghainese restaurants.

Green bean starch sheet cold noodle -$11.80

Then came the crab and pork xiao long bao [mini pork bun with crab] ($9.80). Compared to the xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung, the "skin" of these little buns were quite a bit thicker. However, the flavour burst encased in these dumplings was amazingness. Simply exquisite.

Mini Crab and Pork buns - $9.80

Vinegaring the xiao long bao.

We also ordered the pan-fried pork bun with shallots ($8.80). As I bit into one, I instantly realised that these little pork buns come out extremely hot and fresh (hot enough to burn one's tongue). As I was trying to convince my partner how amazingly wonderful this creation was, he pointed out that the buns seem as if they were deep-fried a the bottom. But, pan-fried or deep-fried, they still tasted pretty awesome.

Pan-fried pork bun with shallots - $8.80

Lastly came the prawn and pork wonton soup ($6.80). By this time, my partner and I were both incredibly satiated. And since these did not look or taste anything like the Shanghainese-style wontons at Din Tai Fung, my partner was none too pleased. Nonetheless, they were... okay?

Prawn and pork wonton soup -$6.80

In all, this shop is able to satisfy any dumpling craving - and quite a cheap and yummy option too! Definitely worth a visit and definitely not a bad alternative to the world famous Din Tai Fung.

Ratings:
Food - 9/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 9/10
Overall - 30/40

Shanghai Night
275 Liverpool Road
Ashfield, Sydney
Tel: (02) 9798 8437