Shanghai Street — Restaurant in Petaling Jaya

I went twice in one day.

I first came in the morning for breakfast. There were already 3 other tables at 9.30am. Small place, with not many tables available.

I first ordered the xiaolong bao and shengjian bao. It was good. The skin on the xiaolong bao was sufficiently thin. The meat filling was flavorful with lots of juice. Nice. However, the ginger condiment that came with it was measly. Idk about everyone else, but I like to take lots of ginger with my XLB. Is ginger expensive? I mean RM8.50 for 3 buns is pretty expensive and they can’t afford to give more? Tbf, they did give more when asked, although not much more. Not a deal breaker though.

Then the shengjian bao came about 5mins later. Also 3 buns. The skin was thin too. Nice. Crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Not the same as in Shanghai. But it was good. RM10 for 3 buns. Both the xiaolong bao and shengjian bao wasn’t enough for a big guy like me. So I ordered the Shanghainese saomai (siewmai). Which came about 6-8 mins later. The skin was thin as well. A little too thin because the saomai fell apart as I picked it up. But, the flavor was really good. Kudos to them 👍

All these weren’t very filling though. I wish they gave options of 4 buns or more on each order. 4 would have been perfect for me. 😆 Total came about RM37 (also ordered a lemongrass tea). A tad expensive for breakfast. But it was worth it.

And then at lunch time I brought my Shanghainese mom to go eat the same dishes. And I also ordered the chili pig ears. The pig ears wasn’t all that great though. There were hardly any in there. It was mostly shredded cucumber. But it’s ok.

My mom gave high praise to the buns and saomai. And decided she wanted the shepherd’s purse wontons for her dinner. So we ordered that for take away. For which I also tried it. It was pretty good. The soup was a little on the salty side. But it’s ok. The quality of the wontons was more important.

I would go back next weekend to try the others. I am keen to know how well they can maintain the quality of the food they serve.

2 complaints: (1) their kitchen staff would ring a bell whenever the dishes are ready to be served. The bell was annoyingly loud. If they could lower the volume or place the bell at the counter, it would be better. (2) While my 90-year old mom and I were seated at a shared table waiting for our takeaway, one of the partners came over and asked us to move to another table to wait. So they can use that table for another patron. My mom has an issue with her legs so it wasn’t very convenient. I am wondering if they could have asked the other patrons to wait a little first? Or I could have stood up to give my seat to someone else? Asking my disabled mom to stand up to move to another table isn’t very good. There are so many ways to resolve this. I hope they take that into consideration the next next.

Otherwise, it was a great experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the food!

Expect a queue at lunch. I was there at about 12pm, there was a long queue. I think they weren’t quite prepared to see the large stream of patrons. There’s no proper queue management in place. I would suggest they plan ahead and provide instructions on how to queue; such as registering their name and number at the counter, provide some stools so patrons could sit to wait. There were some old folks too. So making old folks to stand in queue isn’t good.

I’d recommend that you get there no later than 11.30am for lunch or you will be in a queue for some time. And do register your name and number at the counter before you join the queue.

I’ll be back to check on their food and service. For now they get an average score of 3. If they improve, I’ll change my rating.

Update: Service is still not great. Gave me 1 small plate of condiment for 3 plates of baos. I don’t know if they are being lazy or saving on condiments unnecessarily. I had to ask for more. And they gave me just 1 more 😅

Reservation is no longer allowed. Their reason was that customers are late to the reservations. 🤷‍♂️ I guess I won’t be...

Summary of our breakfast visit: service extremely slow, food not nice, will never return.

What we ordered:

1. spicy old shanghai spicy meat noodle - noodle was QQ, mild spicy. The noodles has meat, potatoes and onions. Meat was strongly seasoned, potatoes and onions unseasoned. When combined together, all flavours was not blended well as one.

2. chicken sesame noodles - similar review as the spicy meat noodle. The noodles were QQ, however the flavours doesn't really blend well together.

3. mixed flavour wanton - soup was ok. Filled with seafood and clean taste. But the wanton skin is too thick. Filling was thick though.

4. xiao long bao - tough and tick on the top of the skin. Not fond. Flavour was ok. The dim sum store nearby has better xlb honestly.

5. sheng jian bao - probably the one that slightly resembles actual shanghai dish. There's soup from the meat within which is nice. However the bottom of the bao was too thick and not appetising. The ones in shanghai are much more thinner than these and are more textured. Filling not as much as compared to the outer bao.

It took about 20 mins for the spicy noodle to be out. Then my sister have finished eating her meal, had to wait another 15 mins for another noodle to be out. Then waited another 10 mins for just the xiao long bao. Then waited another 15 minutes for the wanton and sheng jian bao. In between with multiple checks with the thought of wanting to cancel order.

Honestly the meal was not a slightest close to flavous in shanghai despite the name of the restaurant. That aside, food wise was also a disappointment. Adding it on the extremely slow service even when it's not a full house when we placed our order (only about 4-5 tables...

What really stood out about the place was how close the food was, in authenticity, to what was experienced in Shanghai.

While the dumplings and noodles adhered closely to original recipes and ingredients typically expected in Shanghai restaurants, it is worth nothing that this restaurant has the potential to go further had they focused on customer service and preparation hygiene.

In search of some well-deserved comfort food, a visit was paid on a particularly rainy Sunday morning. Food took longer than usual (35 minutes approx) despite the restaurant having four customers in occupancy.

The first course which that came out was served per the format ordered, while the second came in takeaway packaging, staff claiming that the order had been keyed in as takeaways. The issue was rather trivial and would not pose a significant threat to the overall quality so it was quickly and amicably resolved.

What really caught my attention was when a hair - that’s right, a 5cm strand of human hair was found entangled in one of the stir fry dishes to which I had ordered. Not only was I met with looks of confusion, but the main service staff could be found standing by the kitchen waiting area ‘pretending’ not to hear me, while I raised my hands several times trying to draw her attention.

When another staff member notified her after seeing my attempts, she finally took notice and apologised. As a replacement dish was served as a peace offering, this issue would have been quickly resolved had she not ignored by attempts to speak to her.

Very disappointing service indeed. I will not...