Taste of Shanghai

My parents wanted to do a family night out and we ended up at Eastwood dining on dumplings. This is definitely one of my top dumpling places to go to. Sure the staff here have the personality of a brick wall but I'm here to eat not to chat. When coming to this branch... be prepared to wait... especially during dinner times... the line is out the door. Go in, grab a number so they acknowledged your existence of some sort...

We started off with their Xiao Long Bao. It's great as usual. Not much to flaw here.

We also had the Spicy Beef Belly Noodle Soup. I don't know.. this isn't something I'd normally order. It's decent but their non-noodle menu is better.

We got the Egg Pancake with Deep Fried Dough Stick. I like how this isn't typically at Shanghai-nese restaurants but it tasted fantastic. I think it's good enough to order this as the shallot Pancake replacement. In the end, it needed more sauce... it left us fighting for the remaining drops.

We also ordered the typical Shallot Pancake. It pairs well with the chilli, soy sauce and vinegar combination.

Another popular dish here is the pan fried pork bun. We found the top half too doughy like a pizza crust and wastefully most people only at the bottom half of it.

My mum wanted to try the Shanghai Turnip Croissants. They looked good but was a bit dry without any sauce. The pastry was still nice and everyone seem to compare it to my favourite Yum-Cha dish, the fried taro mixed with mince. I disagree that this even compares with it.

Another dish my mum wanted to try was the Wonton in Red Chilli Oil Sauce. This was the worst dish of the night. The wonton wrap was thick and too doughy. This dish was left untouched by most.

Back to some staples... Pork and Chive dumplings... one plate of steamed and one plate pan-fried. Both equally as good as each other.

All the salt was making us thirsty, so besides the free tea at the table we ordered some Soy Milk...

and Prune juice....

For dessert we had the Mantau buns with a side of condense milk. The mantau buns aren't made in house and we're pretty sure it's store bought. A bit disappointing...and yet again not enough condense milk to pair...

Despite the mixed reviews.. if you come here for the staples then you're guaranteed a good meal.. if that's not convincing enough, maybe the fact the restaurant is full of Asians with others waiting out in a line is a good enough indicator...