Shanghai Street Dumpling

Shanghai Street Dumpling

342 Little Bourke St, Melbourne

(Ph) 9600 2250

E had told me about this new awesome dumpling place on Little Bourke, but on the opposite end of Chinatown - who would have thought there'd be a good dumpling place up this end? It's a very small place, sitting only about ~10 groups of up to 4 people. 

J and I love dumplings, so we decided to give it a try! I had read there was usually a line here during lunch times, so we decided to go when it opens - 11.30am =) Managed to get a comfortable table! Sure enough, at 12 noon, there was about 5 groups of people waiting in line outside =/

We knew we had to order Homemade Traditional Steamed Xiao Long Bao (8 pieces) $8.80. We were tossing up between Homemade Shanghai Fried Pork Mini Bun (6 pieces) $8.50 or Pan Fried Pork Dumplings (15 pieces) $8.50. We decided on the pork mini buns =)

We had waited about 15 minutes and the food still hadn't come yet. The table next to us had ordered a plate of Pan Fried Pork Dumplings - looked and smelt soo good and we were both super hungry, so we decided to order a plate of them as well!

The XLBs came first! <3

Such big dumplings, beautifully pleated! Skin was thin yet didn't break easily =D Dumpling was full of broth inside! <3 The broth was so hot we both burnt ourselves in our impatience to dig into our dumplings =P Only downside was there was no plate of ginger with vinegar like you get at most "higher class" dumpling places, but you could taste the ginger in the meat - delicious!

Next came the Pork Mini Buns - they could have plated it slightly nicer, instead of this strange triangle configuration =P

Super crunchy on the outside!

We fully were not expecting it, but the buns were full of broth too! J poked at her bun and broth squirted out =P So different, usually dumplings/buns with broth are steamed but these were fried yet full of broth - yum!

We were kinda full already - kinda regretted ordering the extra plate of dumplings =X They did eventually come but we only had one each and doggy bagged the rest =P

Dumplings were quite good too, super crispy on the outside but without the broth inside - I wonder if they use different pork mixtures for all the different types of dumplings/buns or if it's just the same? 'cause the bun meat and the pan fried dumpling meat didn't taste as gingery as the XLB meat hmm..

Food~
8.5/10 - thin dumpling skin, juicy meat, delicious broth! If only they provided some ginger too =P

Service~
2/5 -quite casual here but not too bad

Atmosphere~
2/5 - very rushed and claustrophobic with so many people waiting in line during peak lunch time - come before/after the peak to avoid the wait line!

Gotta say definitely my new dumpling place! The price of Shanghai Dumpling House but the quality of HuTong Dumpling Bar! Will definitely be back! =)

C.
xo

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10/06/2012

So I came back for a 2nd time but for dinner this time... we came at 5.30pm so we could get a table before the dinner crowd, sure enough at 6pm there was a massive line outside the restaurant already! We ordered the Pan Fried Dumplings and Shanghai XLBs again... the standards had dropped so much! The fried dumplings weren't even crispy and the XLBs didn't have the gingery taste and not as much broth as last time =( Why is it that once a restaurant gets famous the standards drop? =(