Taste of Shanghai, Asian, Sydney

It is SO COLD! I'm trying to type with my sleeves over my fingers because my poor fingers are shivering. I'm so sick of this weather :( Maybe its time for some hotpot.

Anyways a few of us headed to Taste of Shanghai last night for some post-drinks dinner. It was pretty much a last minute decision that I now regret.

Let me start off by saying that I consider myself a regular of Taste of Shanghai. Its located on the ground floor of the World Square Complex in Sydney and serves cheap, good (sometimes) chinese/shanghainese food. I usually come here for a quick cheap dinner but after yesterday night I may no longer be returning as often.

This is the line waiting outside the restaurant once we arrive:

Now the waitress tells us 'the wait ill be 15-20minutes' and although I didn't fully believe her, I thought instead 'it should be around 30 minutes then'. We only needed a small table and sometimes there might be one massive group in the line waiting.

Boy was I wrong. I think the waitress must not know any words other than '15-20minutes' because that's what she told to every single person after us. Now that doesn't make sense does it? We had already waited 20 minutes by now and just decided to wait it out rather than go somewhere else.

45 minutes later we were finally in. What a joke. They should really hire more competent people.

Anyways its a cheap chinese restaurant so obviously the service will be shit. However I expected more from the food.

Pan fried pork dumplings

At something like $10 for 8 dumplings, these sort of made me a little happier. They were freshly pan fried and the broth on the inside was delicious. Try this dipped in a little bit of vinegar and soysauce.

Lamb and white radish hotpot

As this was a 'chef's recommendation' I was disappointed. Although it taste nice, the serving was really small. One quarter of the hotpot is actually just plain white cabbage and they put this right at the bottom to make the dish look 'fuller'. Hrmm not happy.

Live barramundi with sweet & sour sauce

This was nice but again.. very small.

Mini steamed pork dumplings (xiao long bao)

I've always returned to taste of shanghai because of the xiao long baos. At $7.80 for 8 dumplings, this one dish usually justifies the crap service and the otherwise average food. Normally the dumplings are fresh and the skin is perfect and doesnt break when you lift the dumplings. Last night was different. Firstly they had forgotten our order so we got this dish about 40 minutes into our meal. Secondly some of the dumplings just look retarded. There's one that doesn't even stand up straight! Two of the dumplings broke when we ate them :( That's the worst thing :(

I think the food was especially poor last night because the restaurant was so busy. I recommend you come here Sun-Thurs but definitely not Friday or Saturday. Sadly I won't be returning for a while as this recent experience has scarred me.