Of Ethnic Sydney and Shanghai Baos

It’s been several days now since I moved out of Missy Em’s and into my current place. I know I should be more consistent with my updating so that I don’t have to constantly play catch up.

Anyways this is meant to be the promised follow up post to the previous entry about my 2 weeks at Missy Em’s. Staying with the family had been comfortable and there were some days where I didn’t go out anywhere. And the fact that it was raining made staying in much easier and less guilty.

While I was there Missy Em took the opportunity to show me around a few of the western suburbs that very few, if any, tourists ever get to see or have ever thought about visiting. You certainly won’t find these places as recommended attractions in any guidebooks. (It would be like recommending tourists to visit Ang Mo Kio or Clementi as an attraction while in Singapore.)
But having said that it was interesting to see how the various ethnic groups have grouped themselves into several suburbs. The concentration of a particular ethnic group is so great that the entire suburb is filled with its influences. From wordings on the signage of shops and restaurants, to small specialty shops that cater to groceries particular to that community.
For example while in Ashfield it is not difficult to realized that you are in a suburb with a very strong Chinese community. As you walk along the street, you’ll see many Chinese restaurants and Chinese provision shops.
And in Auburn you will immediate realize that you are in a suburb with a strong middle-eastern community. There is no lack of kabab shops and you will see signboards written in Arabic as you walked around town.
But the greatest sense of the community is in the people on the streets and in the shops. Sometimes you can forget that you are in Sydney, Australia while walking around in some of these western suburbs.

On my last day with the family and as a small gesture of thanks for their hospitality I decided to bring them out for lunch. After a bit of discussion, and recommendations from friends, we decided on an eatery that serves Shanghainese food in Ashfield called the New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant. They are supposedly well known for their Xiao Long Baos: the famous steamed meat dumplings with delicious soup inside.

The place was crowded inside and there was a queue snaking out the door. After waiting for about 10 minutes we finally got a table. On top of the obvious order for the house specialty, we also ordered hot plate stir fry beef ‘Mongolian styled’ (didn’t quite figure out what that meant), spring onion fried pancake (yiu chong bing), and baby kailan in oyster sauce.
All the ‘side dishes’ came first which perhaps was a good thing as it lead up to more anticipation for the baos. But to be fair all the other dishes were not too bad. Then finally the much-awaited baos came.
We ordered both the normal kind as well as the kind with crabmeat supposedly mixed in with the pork. The crabmeat ones came first and although it tasted good, the meat filling was a bit dry and didn’t carry as much flavour for my liking.
But when the ‘normal’ ones came the difference was quite apparent. The skin was softer, the meat filling juicier, and even the soup that oozes out as you bite into it was tastier and perhaps a bit more then the crabmeat baos.
The size of the baos was just nice as well. Not so big that you can’t fit into your mouth at one go (not that I’d recommend it since the soup will be hot), but not so small either that you eating it in 2 bites didn’t seem like a waste of time.

All in all it was a good lunch, although on hindsight I should have ordered more of the baos. Didn't seem enough to go around for the 4 of us.

Actually just writing this post and going through the images is making me hungry and craving for the baos. ☺ Wouldn’t mind going back there again, and this time it will just be for the baos and nothing else… (well maybe the pancake).

To commemorate my last official night at Missy Em’s I had to take a formal shot of us just before we had dinner. This was where I had all my dinners while staying with the family. Since there were 4 of us, the bigger table from the kitchen gets brought out into the living room along with the chairs. If it were just 3 a smaller table in the living room would be used instead and we would just sit on the couch. It was also at this table that I enjoyed my daily dose of Canto dramas with Auntie. ☺

Dinner was Bak Cheok Chicken (think Hainanese chicken), green veges and fried pomfret fish.

And so with this image ends the recounting of my stay at a home that was familiar to me in many ways while in a foreign land at the bottom of the world.