Bite&Bite 屋里香 Shanghai Fried Bun — Restaurant in Ottawa

Food & service (English/Mandarin) are great here- the menu isn’t huge but everything we’ve tried has been delicious. The fried buns are cousins to soup dumplings and the tables have instructions on eating them for first timers. Try to be patient and wait for them to cool slightly before eating.

Our standard order is two buns per person plus the pan fried wontons, scallion noodles, and then other items to round out the meal. Soups have been consistently good and we recently tried the “cold noodles with chicken” which turns out to be room temperature ish (not fridge cold) noodles with a light creamy sesame forward peanut sauce (not super attractive before mixing but tasty), and the cucumbers (fridge cold) with a hefty hit of garlic- extremely crisp!

Suggestion: the scallion noodles will have some extra scalliony infused oil at the bottom of the bowl, dip stuff in it or add to other dishes for extra savoriness

The only minus to Bite&Bite is that they only have 14 seats, generally the right side is configured as two 4 tops and the remaining 3x2 tables are sometimes all separate 2 tops or they will combine two of them. Depending on the day/time you might have to wait for seating. I don’t think they take reservations, but they definitely do takeout. I want B&B to get good business so that they stay in business, but for the love of dumplings please be careful not to make them go internet viral such that we’ll have to wait hours in line to get delicious...

Checked out this newly opened Chinese restaurant. The space is small with about 15 seats, so be prepared to wait during the lunch/dinner rush.

• pan fried buns ($7.99/4pcs) - super juicy, crispy bottom and well seasoned filling but was quite greasy and a bit over fried. Also found the soup to be quite cloudy and oily too.

• small pork wonton soup ($8.99) - slippery and tender wontons in light broth with slightly seafood taste from the dried shrimp and seaweed. Nice to see the use of dried shrimp/蝦皮 as it's probably rare to see Ottawa restaurants use it. Could've used a bit more salt for our own taste.

• chili soy paste noodle soup ($14.99) - skip this. We found it to be very oily and unbalanced. The cubed pork was super sweet like it was candied pork and the overall fermented broad bean paste (辣豆瓣酱/doubanjiang) base could use some tweaking to be more fragrant. Interesting to have the textures of tofu, gluten and potatoes in it, and the noodle texture was nice.

Overall, it's namesake buns are pretty good so it's a great addition to the Ottawa food scene. Probably a 3* by Toronto standards but 4* for Ottawa. I'd come back to try some other dishes. Servers are quick and...

Bite&Bite Shanghai Fried Bun is definitely a hidden gem for Shanghai-style food. The pan fried buns, and wontons are a must-try, with their crispy and juicy texture and flavour. The noodles and soup dishes are also very satisfying, with their tasty broth. We had the scallion noodles and the pickled vegetable and shredded pork noodle soup, and they were both very filling and delicious! It was a cozy and quiet experience. The restaurant was snug but pleasant, and we had it all to ourselves when we got there around 4:30. The waitress was very helpful and friendly and gave us good recommendations and explained the dishes well. We ordered slightly too much food and were very full by the end, but we didn't regret it. The price was decent for the quality and quantity of the food. The buns and wontons were some of the best I’ve ever tried, and I highly recommend it! Next time, I may try their Pickled Cabbage Pig Intestine Noodle dish, if I’m feeling brave. I’ve never had pig intestine before, so it would be a new...