Shanghai Street — Restaurant in Northbridge

3.5 stars Venue: near Perth Station and underground busport. Red Chinese lantern decorations. Comfy seating but very packed. Better for small groups. We came when it just opened on weekday. So, no need to wait and no queue. --- 7.3/10 Service: Told to order and pay only via QR code when to be seated. All basic utensils and seasonings are placed on each table. Tap water, and toothpicks are available at self-service area. Waitresses were helpful. Only the male manager smiled. He was smarter and nicer. Some staff need more training Reasonable waiting time for food. --- 7.2/10 (mostly because of the male manager) Food: Shanghai /Northern Chinese style dumplings /food. Normal presentation. Normal portion. Prices slightly on highside. Steamed Xiao Long Bao. $17.8/8pcs: served with a saucer of shredded ginger. The ginger was cut too roughly. There is soup inside the dumplings. Not ideal Xiao Long Bao appearance. The tip/summit was too thick and dry. The wrappers wasn't elastic and so broken easily. The pork filling wasn't so silky. --- 6/10 Signature Shanghai Pan-fried Mini Buns Pork & Prawn, $18.8/6pcs: a little flag to remind you that really served very, very hot. Crispy bottom. At least one whole prawn (or 2 small prawns) inside the bun. The fillings were juicy. Sprinkled a lot of spring onions and (black and white) sesame seeds on the top. --- 7.5/10 Osmanthus Cake, $9.8/3pcs: Glutinous Rice Cake. A lot of osmanthus. Pretty sweet as Osmanthus...

I don't like posting negative feedback but we had absolutely a terrible experience at this place.

We placed an order using the QR code on the table but the food was not served for over half an hour. We ended up going to the cashier to check on the order status only to be told the QR code is not working because of the rain and our order hasn't even gone through, even though the money was already withdrawn from our account. They made us pay again saying they haven't received our order on their system and we should get a refund for the first payment in a couple of business days. Unfortunately, the refund never came through and we tried contacting them multiple times by phone, text message and email but they never responded to any of them. We had to go back to the restaurant later on to ask for a refund. We were refunded by cash but they didn't include the card surcharge.

Technical issues do happen and we don't blame the restaurant for that, but the entire situation was overly mishandled. No responses to any of the contacts, no refund for the card surcharge and the fact we had to travel back to the restaurant to receive the refund. It's an extremely disappointing and unpleasant experience. We wouldn't go back to this...

The new Shanghai Street Restaurant on James Street Northbridge is situated in the former New Moon Dim Sum location and more recent Kobe Teppanyaki.

Visitors are able to watch the hand made, fresh dumpling being formed at the front of the restaurant.  A dumpling-lover’s delight – so fresh and mouthwatering!

Shanghai Street’s four existing east coast restaurants are known for their traditional take on the Shanghainese classic, xiao long bao, as well as their signature mini pan fried pork buns and Shanghai-style shao mai – dumplings with sticky rice.

We started with serves of vegetarian and pork & vegetable spring rolls. Yum!

Next was the delicious pan fried chicken and prawn dumplings, vegetable dumplings and pork dumplings. Served steaming hot, we could not dive straight in.

The steamed xiao long bao pork buns were like no other I had before - the bao texture, so light and not doughy at all.

The Shanghai Fried Noodle with pork and vegetable was so flavourful with succulent noodles.

Ordering is easy with a convenient QR code system, choosing what to order is the difficult part. We must return to taste some other dishes. A must...