Shanghai Dumpling House Review

At Shanghai Dumpling House, an amazingly cheap (~$5/entree) hole-in-the-wall, we had decent dumplings and poor pancakes. The shanghai won tons were good, as were the xiao long bao (shanghai dumplings). The latter were distinctive in that there was soup held inside in the dumpling and they were reported to be authentic by some attendees that should know. But, while good, I didn't find the soup-inside effect that special. (To confirm the authenticity and ethnicity of the joint: we were one of three tables that included white people and the only one of these in which the white person didn't speak chinese.) We also tried some pancakes: green onion (okay, a little dry) and shanghai style something (too greasy). For reference, the menu also include many traditional chinese restaurant offerings.

For dessert we headed to Marco Polo.

Original Announcement

This Wednesday at 8:00pm we'll head over to Shanghai Dumpling House in the Richmond district of San Francisco. The Shanghai Dumpling House supposedly is one of the better places in the area for xiao long bao (XLB), dumpling with meat and soup *inside*. While it might not be saying much -only a handful of places in the area serve these-, let's give it a try!

The address is 3319 Balboa St.

Please tell me if you are coming!

Comments from Other Attendees

Di Yin, J, I, and one of Di Yin's friends (B) went to Shanghai Dumpling House on Friday, March 4, 2011.  I've been told the chef has changed once or twice since my previous visit.  I was definitely happy with this visit.   We had:

• stir-fried green beans with garlic - very good.  I like this style of thick green beans.  (I don't where to buy them myself.)  There were tons of garlic, but we didn't mind.  The flavor was great, as was the still-crispy texture.  There were a few onion slices as well.
• cucumber salad - good.  Also had tons of garlic and also cilantro.
• wontons - good.  Nicely crispy on one side, rather juicy, and filled with tons of meat.
• xiao long bao - quite good.  Among the best I've had in the bay area.  A wrapper so thin one could see the soup sloshing around inside.  A bit thick pinched top, but that's no big deal.  The soup inside wasn't scalding, which meant after nibbling on the top of the dumpling, one could eat the whole thing as once and feel the warm, luscious juices make waves in one's mouth.  Good mouth-feel.

We left stuffed--the fattiness of the dumplings left us feeling fuller than we thought we would be given the quantities we ate.

B recommended the doughnuts: large, spherical ones topped with powdered sugar.  We saw them delivered to another table, but we didn't have room for them ourselves.

--mark

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