Berry Garden

Berry Garden is one of the restaurants which opened up recently on the rather attractive (and cute) strip in Jin Qiao Pudong. A big thank you to C for arranging her driver + car for our excursion.

We immediately liked the Southeast Asian themed decor when we walked in to the 3-story restaurant. We were even more impressed when we spotted the meringues in the small bakery counter on ground floor.

We got served a plate of lovely looking bread right away, too bad all of them, with the exception of the bread sticks, were way too salty.

The bread came with tapenade, butter and balsamic olive oil.

Cranberry juice (RMB40). A bit pricey when the chocolate milkshake was only RMB38.

My shake wasn't bad although it could be thicker (I like the mashed up ice cream version).

U's caprese pizza (RMB42) arrived first. It looked and tasted very good with its super-thin crust.

C took the set lunch option, which is basically a salad and soup on top of any main course for an extra RMB20.

Soup of the day was cream of carrot and she said it was delicious.

I decided to try one of the starters instead. My calamari had a nicely seasoned batter on top and the bonus whitebait was nice too.

The aioli and cocktail dip which came with the dish. Cute.

C's ravioli set (RMB78 including salad and soup). She said it was very tasty but rich because of the ricotta stuff and the cream mushroom sauce on top.

For main I decided to be ambitious. My duck confit with blueberry sauce.(RMB55) proved to be too ambitious after all. It was tough as cardboard and I was having difficulties cutting through the meat. It also had no taste whatsoever it was like chewing a piece of fiber. A total disappointment.

U saved room for dessert as she set her eyes on the pavlova (RMB45) right from the start. This version didn't disappoint: the meringue on top was crispy and light. The real twist was the rather complex-tasting ginger-infused honey sauce, which made the dish even more interesting (I often find pavlova interesting).

I went for the creme caramel (RMB25) - it's cheaper than its regular RMB40-something price because it's part of a set of something. Not bad at all - very eggy.

Overall the food was not bad, except for my duck. Should stick with less challenging dishes next time. Service needs greasing - it was slow and dishes were arriving at wrong times.

Tip: the 50-cent piece meringue from the bakery is excellent in value and quality!

Berry Garden

346 Hong Feng Rd. (near Biyun Rd.), Pudong, Shanghai. Tel:3382-1170