Sydney Beijing Restaurant, Chinese, Ashfield

What's so different about Sydney Beijing Restaurant when it's in a strip of so many others, all with red signage with bold Chinese writing? Firstly it's Beijing style while the flavour of the month seems to be Shanghai Chinese that is popping here and everywhere - noodlies Sydney food blog has seen quite a few!

For me the main difference is that they are all so nice from the waiters to the owner!  You wouldn't go to a Chinese restaurant expecting to be served by sweet lovely people, but it was such a pleasant surprise.  Admittedly they had just finished rush hour (because there were a few tables still not cleared) so it was relatively quiet, but I'm sure I was greeted with sincere smile by the young waitress.  And the owner too, seemed to be genuinely smiley and happy with everyone, me included when I got up to pay.

The Beijing hand made noodle beef soup was hot (as per the waitress' polite warning).  It was a relatively straight forward affair: beef - a lot of beef with tendons, noodles were thin a little too consistent to be handmade me thinks, but it was starchy (I like that) and hearty, bok choy and a lovely chilli hot sauce (as opposed to peppery spice you'd get with Xibei noodles).

I've fallen in love with this place - it's not any more efficient or amazingly better standard food than some of the better Chinese restaurants, but the staff were just so sweet.  It's reminded me that good service does make a world of difference

Sydney Beijing Restaurant
355 Liverpool Road, Ashfield
(02) 9716 5523

New Shanghai Chinese, Ashfield

Although I was dying to go back to Shanghai Food House, we thought we should try somewhere different and so headed into New Shanghai... which was literally next door.

While our order was pretty standard for us, we did try something new - Shandong Shredded Chicken to be precise, which was melt in your mouth delicious.  The skin is particularly tasty.  Although the chilli wasn't very hot.

The other dishes were standard orders for us, pork dumplings (above), and my favourite dish at this restaurant, garlic cucumber (below); it looks plain but the crispy cucumber in sweet vinegar and sesame oil garlic sauce was divine.

The fried noodles weren't bad either, although I prefer next door's for this dish and the pork dumplings.

Overall, the meal was pretty good value, less than $40 for the two of us.

Shanghai Food House, Ashfield

Anyone who has driven through Ashfield knows the wealth of food available, especially Shanghai style.  We tried Shanghai Food House today, I knew we'd like it, even got a park outside on busy Liverpool Road!

From the outside it looks like a Chinese bbq eatery, with the usual hanging duck and pork. But inside, it's very, very different, and exciting.

There's over 20 different type of dishes for you to choose from and it's there right in front of your face for you to choose to eat now or take away.  They sell by the plate, half container and full container, prices range from $4.50 to $8.

Can't complaint about the variety, Shanghai chilli shreded chicken, cucumber in soy (very tasty), hard boiled egg in soy sauce, through to glass jelly, vegetarian and tofu dishes.

The pics above gives you an idea of the bewildering choice.

And then there's the dishes on the menu, like the fried egg noodles we ordered below.

My verdict? Delicious food, great choice, Walter and I had four dishes and a coke which came to $31, really can't complain.

There might be better Shanghai food on the strip, and in fact there was one next door which had a long line the whole time we were eating, but I left feeling very satisfied.

New Taste Noodle House, Ashfield

Mike and Justine took us to a newish Chinese restaurant, New Taste Noodle House in Ashfield.

They were raving about it and wanted to introduce us to it. I'm not sure what the origin is, sichuan or shanghai food maybe?

We ordered the special chicken of the day which was fried in dried chilli and pepper corn. Truly delicious and not as hot as I thought it might be.



The dumplings in soup were generous and tasty, the outer was soft but still retained an aldente taste, the soup itself was delicous, good balance of salty and sweet.

We'll be going here again!