泰湖星港泰美食餐廳

It was just after 12:30 and the basement of Jiu Guang was packed solid with lunch crowded. While some of the eateries had lines of hungry patrons waiting for tables I managed to find a table at this Singaporean, Cantonese, Thai restaurant.  I should have known better but I was desperate.

For a place which could not make up its mind about what food to serve and so to include three completely different regional cuisines on the menu, I thought I would stick with Cantonese noodles as it's at least simple with smaller margin or error.  My seaweed soup with four balls (RMB20) was lame.  In the MSG packed soup base floated one small bite of seaweed and four small previously-frozen-supermarket-variety balls.  At RMB5 a ball it's taking a Mickey a bit.

On the menu this was listed as beef brisket noodles with turnip (RMB38) so I was expecting the famous HK hawker brisket stew with turnip in a dark sauce.  The dish I got was nothing like it.  And when I asked for some chili sauce to dress up my otherwise very boring bowl of noodles the waitress told me the only sauce available was a yellow chili sauce in vinegar base.  It was all very wrong!  And it's ridiculously expensive compared to what you can get in Hong Kong.

泰湖星港泰美食餐廳
B1F, Jiu Guang Department Store, 1618 Nanjing Rd. West, Shanghai.  Tel: 6288-3952