Shanghai Chinese Restaurant

Shanghai Chinese Restaurant 

6718 Middle Fiskville Rd 

Austin, TX  78752 

(512) 458-8088 

Watch out, they are closed on Monday.  It was my bad luck to look for them a month or two back on a Monday and I ended up finding China Palace.  That day, I couldn't find the sign, but it turns out that they are closed on Monday.  Well, I finally gave them a second chance. 

I ordered my usual, Sesame Chicken, to go.  The lunch came with an egg roll, fried rice and soup.  Of course, I choose Hot and Sour.  Unfortunately, when I opened the bag, and then the box, I found the egg roll was in with the hot steamy foods, so that is one point against.  If you put the egg roll in with the steamy foods, then you end up with a soggy egg roll.  Fortunately, I have learned to look for this and so my egg roll did not get soggy. 

The chicken is battered and does not really seem to have spent any time in the sauce.  There's not a lot sauce, and the sauce is not overly sweet.  In fact the first piece of chicken has a decidedly sour taste.  It looks like the chicken was not prepared specifically for Sesame chicken and was just covered with some sauce at the last minute.  The sweetness of the sauce was not a problem, as Sesame Chicken can slide way too far into sweetness.  This didn't, and the chicken was quite tasty, if a bit tough, at least some pieces.  The only major problem was the amount of sauce. 

There was a good serving of broccoli, and it was still mostly crispy, but I don't buy Sesame Chicken for the broccoli, and I'd have rather had a little more chicken and a lot more sauce rather than any broccoli. 

The eggroll was very crunchy.  It was made with the thinner pastry that comes out very flaky and crunchy and has the disadvantage of flaking all over the place.  But, that is not really a negative, just a way of differentiating them from the thicker won-ton style pastry that is sometimes used for egg rolls. 

The fried rice was a little tasteless, needed more sauce.  In fact, it was surprisingly tasteless.  It certainly didn't have enough salt.  In fact, it didn't have enough anything and was barely edible after mixing with the sauce.  I didn't finish it. 

Which brings me to the Hot and Sour soup.  The soup was long on hot and short on flavor.  It wasn't terrible, and I like a nice hot Hot and Sour soup, but it wasn't all that tasty, and it was hot.  Half an hour after eating it, my lips were still burning and I didn't finish all the soup, because it wasn't all that tasty. 

So, in conclusion, there was only one thing in this lunch that really rates a good review and that was the egg roll.  The chicken was subpar, but not terrible.  There was too much broccoli and not enough sauce.  The fried rice was tasteless, and the Hot and Sour soup was overly hot and not tasty enough.  I enjoyed this lunch, and it wasn't over priced, but it just wasn't good enough, you can do much better at this price.