Fresh and highly addicting Shanghai Dumplings in Saratoga
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1040
Reviewed: 12/8/2008
Rating: 9
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I've resorted back to poems.
shanghai is the style seafood pork dumplings ordered shanghai fried noodles
other items ehhhh dumplings silky and soupy scalding hot watch out
fried noodles greasy needed wok hay and chicken tofu tasted bland
best in area order dumplings on visit will not disappoint
prices average food and service outstanding rated nine by me
RETURN VISIT for Jason!3/18/2009 - 8.5 Rating: I went here the other day and noticed a different lady made our XLBs and the wrapper was way too thin. You'd try to pick it up and end up poking a hole in the skin leaking the precious broth. Pork mixture was still good as well as the Shanghai noodles.
Reviewer: ne00
Total Reviews: 187
Reviewed: 10/28/2008
Rating: 9
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Photo 4: Not everyone is drinking the Apple juice but plenty to go around I'm sure. =P
My parents mentioned to me about this place a few weeks ago and I checked out the goods before meeting up with J for dinner. I was told that Shanghai Dumpling specialized in XLB as they hand make it in the restaurant for everyone to see.
J mentioned that he stopped by for lunch one day and the line was out the door. I probably wouldn’t come for lunch and just hit it up for dinner. The place is reasonable in terms of prices. Service is decent for dinner but I can see how it can be lacking when it’s really busy during lunch. It took a while for them to refill out teapot.
This is a place that is all about the food. And here we go…
XLB: The restaurant is named Shanghai Dumpling for a good reason. This is one of the best I’ve had in the bay area. It’s obvious the XLB’s hand made from scratch. The skin is thin and when being hoisted up with chopsticks I could see the soup just sagging inside the skin at the bottom. It’s not just eye candy. This is a must order. They offer two kinds, the regular pork one and pork with crab paste. 10/10
Shanghai Fried Noodles: This is just OK. The noodles tasted kind of healthy without all the sodium or grease. I was a bit disappointed with portion size. Most of the noodle and rice dishes are around 5.95 to 7 bucks. 7.5/10
Seafood Tofu Clay pot: A bit unexpected as I am more used to the clay pots that comes with braised tofu versus just the plain tofu. The clay pot was good none the less. The clear gravy was extra thick, the shrimp was very tasty, tofu was good, and it had some type of other seafood item with fish. Overall it felt like a healthy dish, again not very greasy nor was there a lot of sodium in the dish. 8.5/10
Steamed Pork with Crab past dumplings: I think the top portion was under steamed. Would have rather ordered the pork + crab version of the XLB than this or the pan fried pork buns. It’s decent but I probably won’t order again. 7/10
Some items that I had the first time I came…
Shrimp wontons: Excellent home made pork wontons with shrimp. Not a whole lot and they’re kind of small but definitely a repeat order. The soup base was good as well. 9/10
Yang Chow Fried Rice: The beef in the fried rice was ridiculously tender. The fried rice itself I feel is a bit like the Shanghai fried noodles. I didn’t really feel like there was a lot to go around. The portion size barely fed three people. 7.5/10
Overall the XLB and their shrimp dishes are a must try. Prices are decent for this type of establishment. Portion sizes are average value depending on what is ordered and how many people are in the party. Service could be better and was better when it isn’t very crowded versus the night J and I went.
I was a big fan of the XLBs from shanghai classic, so was psyched to hear that the same crew reopened at this location.
We drive up, and sure enough through the front window I see the same gal w/ the pigtails making them up fresh. Yay!
This place is smaller than the previous location but fortunately not crowded, possibly due to the economy.
The menu seems more limited now, but at least the old standbys are still there. We ordered XLBs (of course!), green onion pancakes, pork knuckle, and shrimp in scrambled eggs. The lowdown:
XLBs: these are the best around like everyone else says. Made fresh and cooked to order right in plain sight. I think the XLBs are the primary reason for this restaurant's success. If you look around it's what everyone orders. Super juicy and tasty pork filling. Super hot, too! Best way to eat: carefully use chopstick to lift and place on soup spoon. Chew tiny hole, slurp out a bit of delicious juice, blow to cool. Repeat until juice is mostly drained and internals have cooled. Then slam down entire remaining dumpling and enjoy immense porky yumminess. Any other method and you'll risk burning tongue or wasting the precious juice. Worth a trip here just for these, IMO.
green onion pancakes: thin style, crispy/chewy w/ a great texture and green onion flavor. May be the best I've had. Definitely would order again.
pork knuckle: a dish w/ great potential but not so great implementation. Braised, slow cooked, super tender and juicy, but way too sweet. Hate to see this done to such a good cut of meat, would probably pass on this next time.
shrimp in scrambled eggs: good wok hay, but mostly eggs w/ smallish shrimp that weren't very flavorful. Have had much better version of this at other places. Also not a repeat order.
Am going to give Shanghai Dumplings the benefit of the doubt since I've had better meals at the previous location and the XLBs and green onion pancakes are still excellent. This location is clean and service was efficient. Prices are moderate although definitely not as cheap as, for instance, Chinjin Eastern down the street. And they kept my credit card so now I have to go retrieve it. Lame.
The restaurant is very small. Luckily it was only half filled when we came.
Steamed pork bun: This was the one with the soup inside the bun and wow, I have never had this before. It was a pretty cool experience and would order this again. Pork was very good, but I thought the broth could have been more flavorful. Still good nonetheless.
Stirfry noodles: Very thick egg noodles and tasted like udon. This was more of a filler than anything else. It wasn't bad, but nothing special. Would probably try something else.
Vegetable dumplings: I was pleasantly surprised with the flavor.
Green onion pancake: Very crisp and light, but I prefer mine with a bit more body to it. It was just ok.
Jasmine tea: I know people would not usually rate the tea, but wow, I really liked it! It wasn't bitter or too dark like other restaurants. You could taste the fragrance of the jasmine tea and it was so smooth. I almost finished the entire pot!
Total bill: 22.40 (w/o tip) Quite decent for two people.
Service: Servers were a little hard to flag down. They were running in and out of the kitchen quite frequently (I guess because customers were ordering many dishes)
Rating: 7.5 Worth a return visit to try other items. The highlight was definitely the steamed pork bun (and the tea ^^) The restaurant had a lot of items to choose from, so perhaps my rating would be different the next time around.
“The 1st time we went, you could tell everyone was just starting to eat and they lady says 10min wait. 2nd time my friend ordered a dish with shrimp and it came without it, we flagged the waiter and we were told they were out,but they served it anways”
2/6/2009 12:04:11 PM
aquagrl800 ate...
xlb + shanghai style noodles + seafood claypot
“xlb were ok, wrappers very thin. the noodles were ok, could have used a little bit more of the greens. the sauce for the claypot was delicious, tasted a lot like chicken broth. ok experience. service odd, with appetizers coming last.”
12/13/2008 7:56:08 PM
Howard ate...
xlb and shengjian bao
“Ordinary dumplings, pork flavorless, broth sour, skins tough ... what's the fuss? Only one SJB was brothy.
Sorry, I went with high hopes. High point was the friendly service with tea refill.”
