While hunting for instant desserts late on a Friday night, a friend pointed at the dark and empty closed Taste Gallery and asked if I had ever been. I hadn't, but mostly because the SO tries to avoid Sunnybank's Marketsquare. The traffic and lack of parking on the weekends drives him nuts!
I knew if I was going to try them out, the SO would need convincing to lay aside his reservations and pray to the parking gods. Who - as it turns out - answered those prayers in 5 minutes after we braved the weekend traffic to try Taste Gallery for lunch. Score!
Whoever Taste Gallery hired as their interior decorator did a great job. The restaurant looked really modern and sophisticated with plush chairs.
We walked straight off the street and directed straight to a table without reservations and were handed 3 large sheets.
The first was a singled-sided A4 list of beverages.
The second is a duo-sided A3 menu with photos.
The last was a duo-sided order sheet.
Each menu item is priced as either:
Small - AUD$3.50
Medium - AUD$4.50
Large - AUD$5.50
Special - AUD$7.50
Premium - AUD$9.50
Ultimate - AUD$11.50
I can think of nothing better for a chilli hit than a Sichuan dish. Famished, I ordered the Sichuan noodles with pepper sauce, thinking it was just a single serve.
Wrong! What arrived was a huge bowl meant for sharing. Not that I would share, as the noodles were perfect, smoothered in a blend of pork mince, peas and tofu. And the sauce was exactly the shot of spicy zing I craved. All you gotta do is slurp slurp slurp!
The SO ordered the steamed siu mai, since yum cha cannot be complete without it or har gao. These are plump and juicy, but the shitake mushroom flaour overpowered everything else.
I was first introduced to delicious by a friend at an eatery, which closed last year. The SO and I have been hunting for a new place to replace our original haunt, and we might still be looking for awhile. These pan fried pork buns are ok, but just not as flavourful as the ones we used to have. Also watch out when they arrive - they are full of piping hot soup and can squirt their contents up your nose if not careful.
The char siew bao is the SO's favorite yum cha dish - it has to be sweet and savoury, filled with juicy pork covered in sticky sauce and wrapped in fluffy soft-as-a-cloud dough. While the filling at Taste Gallery is really delicious, I couldn't stop from thinking that the dough is more doughy-er than the soft Hong Kong style baos I'm familiar with. It is still yummy, but was more filling than I expected.
For beverages, Taste Gallery has a range of bubble teas, but when having yum cha, you really should only be sipping hot tea to clean the palate. Tea is charged at AUD$1.50 per person and there is a choice between 6 varieties: oolong, pu erh, jasmine, chrysanthemum, pu erh and chrysanthemum blend, and kuan yin.
Taste Gallery's food was not bad - simple and homely, and their service was quick, but it doesn't have anything particularly fantastic to keep you coming back for more. Perhaps we should try their xiao long baos instead. read more