Dinner at Taste Gallery
Miss Y’s and mine cravings for chinese food has led us to Taste Gallery which is situated in Market Square in Sunnybank.
She wanted spicy fish 😂 I just wanted dumplings! 🥟
We got to the venue, totally forgetting that they did a huge renovation during the Christmas period. Walked in, and loved it! It was bright, the lighting was comfortable and the chairs looked comfortable.
We were seated and just continued to look around. The venue was so so so different to what Miss Y remembered. Previously it had lovely red lanterns hanging on the ceilings and the lighting was so much darker.
It gave the venue quite a mysterious look.
I really like the new changes, especially when it had the options of the partitions so that if you wanted a more private party, you could partition it off and enjoy a more quiet setting.
We sat down, handed the menu and started perusing.
Menu:
It was an Encyclopedia that we were handed 😱 …..the thickness of the book was probably 5 inches thick! It was a bit daunting at first, but once we started flipping through the books we realized why it was so thick. Pretty much every dish had a picture to showcase what you could expect if you ordered a dish - which is kinda nice, especially when you're not sure what to order. We later found out that there was over 100 dishes in this restaurant (poor chef 😅)
It um, really is hard to choose dishes, with so many options to choose from. 😅 So we raised the white flag 🏳 and asked for help.
The wait staff were extremely friendly and helpful - they helped us narrow down our choices. The problem we found with the menu was that it was too extensive and everything looked delicious 😅. So we found having images to give us an inkling of what the dish was and looked like, was fantastic and very helpful.
We have actually been to this restaurant on 2 separate occasions, but I’ll just share what was our favourite, and if the crowd wants it, I’m happy to write up my experiences on the other foods 😊.
So we start off with the buns and dumplings;
We ordered the coloured dumplings because they were pretty 😂 . But also very tasty. The wait staff mentioned that the colouring that you see in the skin is derived from pure vegetable juices. The pink is from beetroot, green is from spinach, yellow is from pumpkins and black was from squid ink.
I personally couldn't really tell the dumpling wrappers to be tasting too different to be honest, but I could really taste the pork flavors that were from the meat inside. It was quite plump, dense and had a nice strong porky flavor. It came with a bit of a vinaigrette sauce, but honestly…. you didn’t really need it. The dumplings were quite flavoursome by itself.
The boiled fish fillet with pickled cabbage & chili, sweet and sour crispy pork tenderloin, deep fried tofu with spicy minced pork, stewed spare-ribs with green beans also arrived at our tables, and these were our favourites out of all the foods we’ve had (so far - only twice remember! 😂)
The boiled fish in pickled cabbage & chili was interesting for me. Miss Y ate it and drank the soup without any prompting - clearly she’d had it before. 😂 I had had sauerkraut before, but never in a soup. I have been hearing all the benefits of pickled and fermented foods lately and was interested in adding a bit more fermented foods into my diet as I’d heard that it aided in digestion and considering I love to eat (and will continue to eat as I’m old and weary) 🤔 I needed to ensure that my gut is in optimal condition!💪👊 .
I didn’t find the flavour of the pickled cabbage too intense. You could taste the fish, which is a good sign. I find when venues have too many flavours in their dishes, sometimes I wonder what they are trying to cover up! 😂
Sweet and sour crispy pork tenderloin was really nice. We’d actually had it twice….that's how amazing it was. The traditional sweet and sour we tend to think of red sauce (which is honestly just tomato sauce to give its beautiful red colour, not red colouring thank goodness). I really would love to find out how they make this sauce.
The pork was deep fried (to perfection) a bit crispy but not dry. That itself is a skill that isn’t easily matched (hence why they're the chef and we eat 😂) But the sauce…. 🤤 Seriously had me craving for more. (Even Miss Y had more than one piece 🤫 You didn’t hear it from me...)
Deep fried tofu with spicy minced pork - had to have been one of Miss Y’s favorite. She loves her tofu. It was, um, nice ☺️ 😂 . I like tofu, but….I had so much more delicious food to eat! 😬 I didn’t want to just eat tofu sorry! 😂😂😂 . (Ducks head) (You didn’t hear it from me!)
Now this one was interesting. The stewed spare-ribs with green beans is apparently something from the restaurant owner's hometown. It was recommended quite heavily by friends who came with us. (You didn’t think only the 2 of us ate all this food did you? 😂)
They’d obviously had it before, or something similar. So we ordered it.
Boy oh boy! Was it tasty. Miss Y likes rice wayyyy more than me but usually doesn’t eat too much rice as it fills her up too quickly. Even she ate 1 WHOLE bowl! I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her eat a whole bowl of rice before (unless it's proper Japanese rice 🍚 ).
I really enjoyed how the ribs were clearly stewed for a long time, as the meat just slipped off! the bone. It was that tender 🤤. Everyone was just scooping the sauce out of the bowl and the poor meat was left behind! Sacrilegious! How could anyone have such blasphemous behaviours! 😱
Thankfully, people didn’t notice, but I slowly and surely, munched on the rest of the meat, and went straight to foodie heaven
But before I floated away, I grabbed a mixed nut pastry which was a nice snack on my way to foodie heaven. It was so nutty and dense, with a slight sweetness to it - must of been the little bit of sugar they added to it otherwise it wouldn’t of stayed packed together.
I know Miss Y really enjoyed this dessert, as I spied her grab her second pastry nonchalantly and I don’t blame her. It had clearly just come out of the oven? (not sure, didn’t ask sorry) as the pastry was still slightly warm. We tried to order it again, that second time. But unfortunately it was sold out.
Summary:
Ambience ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Service ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Food ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐.5
I really love the fact that all of their dumplings, desserts and all dishes are all made in store. Fresh food always tastes so much better when it is made fresh and in shop.
I really enjoyed my dining experience here at Taste Gallery.
I know that they also make an inexpensive breakfast. I just hope that they are still in operation. That….I’m quite keen on trying next!
PS: Next plan of attack is lobster!! 🦞 Heard it's in town… sashimi…. 🤤
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