Taste of Shanghai: Delicious Dumplings and More
This northern Chinese restaurant has slotted neatly into the melange of Asian establishments on brightly lit Rowe Street. One of three Taste of Shanghai restaurants,it consists of a glass-enclosed open kitchen and a large, relatively no-frills dining room. It's perpetually busy and it doesn’t take bookings, so if the room is full, you’ll have to take a number and mooch around outside awhile.
The young staff manage the chaos with reasonable competency, delivering a modest but unusually pleasant-style of service. Taste of Shanghai is a must for lovers of Shanghainese fried and steamed dumplings, with an extensive menu detailing dozens of variations on the theme.
Xiaolongbao dumplings are a classic Shanghai street food, typically made from minced pork wrapped in a white flour skin. This outer layer can be thick, fluffy and doughy or delicate, thin and translucent. Best of all, the Taste of Shanghai specialties are the pork and crab pan-fried dumplings. With their crisp-yet-chewy pan-browned bottoms, the deliciously soupy, steamy insides explode in the mouth with the full flavours of ginger-infused pork and rich, red crab roe. Also on offer are the more-delicate chive and pork dumplings, chicken and mushroom dumplings, and mini prawn and pork dumplings in broth.
It would be easy to fill up on the dumplings alone (they are easily the most delicious items in the entire, enormous menu) but there are other interesting dishes to be enjoyed here. Shredded pork and leek is stir-fried in a mildly sweet and pleasingly gingery gravy and comes ready to be rolled up in thin Beijing-style pancakes. Then there’s moist and crunchy fried chicken, served with a helping of finger-licking fried garlic and brought to the table in a lattice bamboo cone.
Seafood includes fresh mud crab with rich salted duck egg yolk and sweet and sour fish served with fluffy cornmeal buns. Desserts consist mainly of fruit and jelly concoctions, and yet more dumpling-like items filled with red bean paste and black sesame.
Posted by Fiona Davies
