Restaurant Review: Shanghai Street Dumpling

Location: 342 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
Phone: 03 9600 2250
Cuisine: Chinese
Overall Impression: 8/10

Check out our review of the La Trobe Street restaurant here!

The queues started. We immediately heaved a sigh of relief. It appeared we had just beaten the infamous dinner rush in a matter of seconds. As we waited impatiently for our dumplings to arrive, J and I wondered whether they would live up to the hype. Such enormous hype for such tiny little dumplings.

The one thing that I have struggled to find in Melbourne that I really enjoyed during my time in Shanghai has been the fried pork buns. They are basically the rougher, tougher, more hawker style cousin to the delicate ‘Xiao Long Bao’. They still have that beautiful pork broth inside but the casing is very different and far from delicate. The dumpling’s base is crisp and caramelised from the frying.

Steamed vegetarian dumplings

Our dumplings arrived promptly and they were brilliant. Everything tasted incredibly fresh. It was clear that the ingredients being used were of a good standard. Dumpling eateries are notorious for dubious fillings but these were certainly a few notches up the norm. Our vegetarian and Beijing pork dumplings had a beautiful encasing that had quite a lovely ‘bite’ and a good chewiness that is synonymous with freshly made dumplings – not surprising given how ludicrously busy this place it. The dumplings are probably sold the moment they are made!

Steamed Beijing pork dumplings

Fried pork buns

And the star plate of fried pork buns finally arrived. The broth was beautiful and flavoursome, the base was perfectly crisp and delicious.

Looks like Melbourne has a welcomed new best dumpling eatery contender!