taste of shanghai @ rowe st., eastwood

I've lost track of the number of weeks (or months!) since I've been sick. I've spent this weekend mostly curled up in bed or sleeping on the go and I've hated every minute of it. In a nutshell, what started off as the flu developed into a secondary infection and despite a course of antibiotics, a dry cough lingered for about 2 weeks and I'm back with the flu and still coughing. I really think it's time for this sickness to go away! 

And whilst I've been sick, the backlog of photos and the blog posts have been building up and well, it's somewhat amazing the amount of food that I can still get through whilst I'm sick! For the record, I have resorted to slightly blander food in the hope of finally getting better and whilst this might feel like the worst thing in the world right now for someone that enjoys food, getting better is my priority - I can't stand another cough or another minute curled up in bed. Anyway, catching up on some eatings this year....

Taste of Shanghai has been in Eastwood for a good little while now and every night there seems to be the same queue that snakes out the door. That was also what put me off going there in the first place and good news for the restaurant (and perhaps not so good news for myself and other dining patrons), yes, you need to be prepared to wait for a table in that queue.

Seems like the renovating of the restaurant has also seen a revamp of the menu. I remember the food to be quite oily when the shop first opened but on this visit, the food was clean, crisp and certainly tasty. We tried this Pork with Bean Starch Sheet Noodle which is an ideal dish when you can't quite decide ordering between and entree and a main.

Steamed Pork Dumplings - how I love that slurp of soup when you bite into one of these but I always seem to be burning my tongue!

Noodles with sliced cucumber, pork mince and black bean sauce. 

Taiwanese Milk Tea - a lot milkier than a traditional Hong Kong Milk Tea (which I swear by) but still  a good cold drink for a warm day.

Seems like eating lunch at 2 or 3pm in the afternoon (or 8-9pm at night i.e. outside of standard meal times) is the only way to beat the queue here but otherwise, the usual 15-30 minute wait is worthwhile at the end of it - you just have to hang in there (as hard as it may seems). There's been times when I've grabbed a ticket and in the end, went elsewhere to eat whilst we were waiting. Other times, I've planned on going here and changed by mind at the last minute after seeing the queue. If only they could do something about it and then I could eat here a bit more often! 

Anyway, don't let me deter you from coming here. I definitely recommend the food. It's the sensible me that says don't bother waiting in a queue for 30 minutes for food which I think is open for debate. I'm personally not a big fan of it but you may think otherwise.