Shanghai Street — Restaurant in Melbourne

I came to this restaurant for the first time. When I was seated, one employee told me that I had a 90-minute time limit, which seemed fine as 90 minutes was more than enough for me to wait for them and to eat. However, 15 minutes later, after everyone had arrived, another employee told us we only had 70 minutes and the timing includes the cooking time. This was a bit frustrating since they had given us the wrong information earlier. Then, five minutes later, another employee came to remind us of the time limit while we were still placing our order. She took our order note, but shortly after, she came back to remind us again about the time limit, even though she was still holding our order in her hand.

When the food arrived, we enjoyed it, but then after some times another employee came to remind us we only had 5 minutes left, even though we were still in the middle of eating. (By the way, we were eating quickly due to the constant reminders about the time limit). Finally, 5 minutes later, he came back to say our time was up.

I understand that your restaurant has a time limit, but some flexibility is necessary.

First, the initial employee gave us incorrect information about the time limit.

-Second, your restaurant is not an all-you-can-eat establishment, so enforcing a time limit that includes cooking time doesn't quite make sense.

Third, please don't remind customers about the time limit sooooo often. 5 times? Really? It creates unnecessary pressure. Your customers pay not just for the food but for the overall dining experience.

Finally, when the waiter told us our time was up, it would have made sense if the restaurant were full and there was a line of customers waiting. However, that wasn't the case. There were still empty tables, and no one was waiting. This is where some flexibility in hospitality industry would have been appreciated. We were still eating, no other customers needed the table, so why not allow us to stay a little longer to finish enjoying the meal? We wanted to order some dessert after the meal, but canceled the plan as we ran out of time. It was definitely not a good dining experience. I hope my review is seen by the management for future...

Shanghai Street Chinatown in Little Bourke Street is a very busy place. We walked straight in around 7 pm. They have a QR code to check in for contact tracing before you are seated. I went on a Monday night, so its not as busy as a Thurs, Fri or Sat, when people have to wait to get in and eat.

We ordered Pork Steamed Xiao Long Bao, Chicken & Sweet corn soup, Pork + Vege Spring Rolls, Pineapple Sweet n Sour Chicken, Chicken Fried Rice and last but not least, Fried Sticky Rice Ball with Red Bean Filling. Drinks; Water and a Pepsi Max. Water and hot tea are free, you can help yourself to those at a self serve area, back of restaurant.

The service was lightning fast, within 5 to 10 minutes we had all our food. The food is good. My soup had a very strong smell of sesame oil as it was served, but I didnt really notice an excess of that when I ate it.

It ended up being a bit of food for 3 of us. I took the Red Bean balls (so good) and Pork Xiao Long Bao to go (added chilli oil + soy sauce to them before I packed it away) The bao are amazing with the chilli oil and soy sauce. I wouldve liked a little more soup inside them, the casing may have absorbed that by the time I ate it 2 hours later I guess, these things arent really made for 'later' I spose. Its .50c a takeaway container. The cost was $74.50c for everything.

There is a 1% surcharge for credit card and a minimum food order of $10. I paid cash 🙂

Ps: I ate all the Xiao Long Bao by myself, no worries. Theyre yummy cold too. I did ask if anyone wanted any "Does anyone want some of these?" (while eating them as quickly as possible) Thats the polite thing to do, but I didnt...

ORDERED: 🥟 2. Steamed xiao long bao: Crab & pork (8 pieces) ($18.80) 🥟 5. Signature shanghai pan fried mini bun pork (6 pieces) ($17.80) 🥟 8. Pan fried chicken & prawn (10 pieces) ($17.80) 🍚 72. Smoked salmon fried rice ($19.80) 🌿 49. Mapo tofu: Sichuan style tofu with minced pork ($22.80) 🥗 53: Stir fried green beans with pork mince & olive veg ($22.00) Weekend surcharge 10%

This portion costs $32.73pp

REVIEW: ❤ Favourite was the Signature shanghai pan fried mini bun pork. There's something that is so delicious about a half-moist, half-crispy bun. The savoury mixture of the pork coats the inside of bun, spreading flavour. So when you bite into it, there's impact! 👍 Pan fried dumpling is an easy choice and fills the people up.

Other than that, the overly salty smoked salmon fried rice was too much. It wasn't balanced well against the salty mapo tofu. Very glad we had water on hand! 😍 The dumplings weren't as memorable to me. The xiao long baos are wrapped nicely but the skin didn't seem too delicate and not much soup came out for me.

Service was straight forward and luckily we were seated near the waiter's table. We could help ourselves to extra bowls to separate our dumpling sauce from the main course. The limit of one thin tissue per person is also kind of insane. 😂

Overall, Shanghai Street is ok. It's a fast paced environment where food comes out when it's ready. But I think it's lost the hype that it used to be...