Crossroad Cafe

I decided to try as many dishes at Crossroad Cafe as I could stomach, basically I felt gastronomically deprived after our trip to Hanoi. I started with laksa, a popular Malaysian and Singaporean dish.

First I have to confess I have not tried the dish in Malaysia/Singapore and therefore won't be able to tell you what exactly is authentic. According to Wikipedia there are 3 versions of laksa and I would categorize this version as curry laksa. On top of the thick round rice noodles there were tofu puffs, bean sprouts, sliced fish cake, prawns and a boiled egg. While it was pretty delicious I found it a little too fishy (too much fish sauce/paste maybe?). It could also be a little spicier.
On the menu I found Malaysian fried rice and Indonesian fried rice and I couldn't figure out the difference. I picked Malaysian at the end because the waitress told me it's spicy (and the Indonesian one sweet).

The dish looked like nasi goreng at a glance, but it tasted nothing like it. Basically the rice had no taste at all and there was not a hint of spicyness. What was the waitress on about? To make it worse it was full of baby squid. Very odd and disappointing. I am still trying to work out why this place is such a hit and miss. It's got the best chicken curry in town and the Hainen chicken rice is not bad; yet everything else we tried (especially items involved frying) had been below average.

Lunch was around RMB90 with a watermelon juice.

Crossroad cafe

8/F, Parkson, 918 Huai Hai Rd. (near Shanxi Rd.) Shanghai. Tel: 6415-2923