Shanghai 10 Grand, Avenue K

After battling Friday evening traffic into the city, a usual 10-minute journey that took 45 minutes, I was grumpy and ravenous. My friend H who had made the proposition for dinner at Avenue K had promised good food at reasonable prices, and I was intending to hold her to her words.

We arrived at Shanghai 10 Grand at the basement of Avenue K, right above the hordes of LRT commuters. At this point, I remembered a pleasant dining experience at the Shanghai 10 outlet in Bangsar Baru more than a year ago, and a less pleasant one at the outlet in Queensbay Mall in Penang, so really, the evening could go either way.

H took to the task of ordering for all four of us with great ease, fuelling suspicion that she had been lunching extremely well at her new work surroundings. We were a little taken aback when all the food arrived at one go and we had to join our 4-seater table with another to make space for all the plates, teacups, condiments and whatnot.

Fried flat glass noodles with crab roe and shrimps. I'm not a huge glass noodle fan, the stringy variety anyway, but this one transformed me into an instant convert. Tasted like hor fun, with rougher texture and more bite, and each piece see-through to boot! The crab roe and shrimps were abundant, though you wouldn't be able to tell from my awful photo.

The outlet name has Shanghai in it after all so missing out on the Xiu Long Bao would have been a crime. The XLBs here are decent, with the right amount of filling nestled in a small mouthful of soup. It isn't quite Din Tai Feng's 18-fold offering, but it'll do.

Egg tarts, extra milky. Because I'm quasi lactose-intolerant, one half of a tart was just about all I could stomach.

Fried yam cake, instead of the usual radish cake. I have to say I much prefer this to radish cake. There's just so much more substance to yam than radish.

Crispy prawn rolls in beancurd skin. Nothing extraordinary but credit due for the chunky fresh prawns within.

Pickled cucumber. Refreshing, tangy with a mild hint of spice and everything nice!

There was also an order of the ramen in Shanghai-style hot & spicy soup but I completely forgot to get a shot of it. The noodles were springy, and a nice soupy addition to the rest of the relatively dry meal.

We polished everything off, right down to the last sliver of cucumber. The bill split up evenly to about RM16 per person, which is reasonable enough so all the horrors upon exiting the Smart tunnel earlier were well forgotten!