Shanghai Time — Restaurant in New York

3.5 stars, but I'm rounding up because there was more good than bad, and because the service was super friendly and attentive.

First, a note about Chinese food in general in the US: A lot of Americans--probably most--tend to think of Chinese food as one monolithic cuisine. That's hilarious because China is slightly bigger than the continental US, so just as there is no such thing as American cuisine, there really is no such thing is Chinese cuisine. Instead, it's best to think of these large countries as having many regional cuisines that sometimes get blended due to the movements of people around the country.

However, due to this ignorance, many Chinese restaurants specializing in one regional cuisine feel the pressure to include popular items from other regional Chinese cuisines in order to appeal to as many customers as possible--further adding to the confusion. That is why you'll find Shanghainese soup dumplings in a Cantonese dim sum restaurant, or Xian cumin lamb in a Szechuan restaurant.

Shanghainese food has suffered some obscurity until recently, eclipsed by its more popular cousins Cantonese and Szechuan food--but it's finally getting its turn in the sun with the popularity of places like Nan Xiang and CheLi, and the opening of Shanghai Time only continues this trend.

Here's what you should get:

Shanghai Time Special Panfried Pork (上海食代特色生煎包): Easily one of the best panfried soup soup dumplings I've ever had outside of China/Taiwan.

Shanghainese Leek With Pork Rice Cakes (荠菜肉丝炒年糕): Note that the English translation says "leek" but the vegetable is in fact the much more obscure--and far more authentic--shepherd's purse. This is an absolute thrill if you know Shanghainese food, as most rice cake/porl stir-fry dishes are made with the much cheaper snow cabbage. Get this.

5 Colors Stars Special Rainbow Steamer (5彩小笼包): I think one of the XLBs didn't get the memo that it was supposed to be a different color, but these were nonetheless tasty. Not as photogenic as the ones at Nan Xiang, but hearty and different, with each color offering a different flavor. Note: The red one is a bit spicy.

4 Colors Rainbows Crystal Shrimp (4色彩虹水晶虾饺): I know crystal shrimp dumplings aren't Shanghainese, but I couldn't resist getting this for the photogenic-ness. As a bonus, the different colors were also different flavors!

Steamed Vegetable Dumplings (翡翠素饺): The item by which I judge all Shanghainese restaurants (NOT xiao long bao). These were some of the best I've had, generously filled with minced tofu, rice noodles, carrot, and wood ear.

Shredded Pork With Bamboo And Mustard Green Noodle Soup (雪菜笋丝肉丝汤面): My other favorite Shangahinese dish. This was just okay. Too oily, and though I asked for there to be no scallions in the soup, there were, in fact, scallions. There should never be scallions in this...

I live in Flushing, where Shanghainese food is authentic & as good as it gets outside of China. I was in Manhattan for the day with my family and decided to get lunch here after seeing it on social media saying this was the best shenjianbao in New York. The crowd was a mix of Chinese locals and Americans, the space is small but well lit. I did not mind until we got a cup of water in barely clean cup- but you know the Chinese restaurant rule is the best place is a 3.5, so we gave it a chance.

We ordered a bunch of normal Shanghainese dishes we usually order, and sadly the garlic cucumber was the only decent dish we had the entire meal. The other cold dishes came out late (it’s supposed to be the first to come out, they are already made) and we had to remind our waiter who probably forgot. We had pan fried noodles that came out quickly and was so bland it tasted like plain warm boiled mixed with a little LIGHT soy sauce - it was flavorless, colorless and lacked the wokhei for a stir fried dish. We had to put sauce all over it to even be palatable, which was disappointing. I have easily made this dish at home and tasted better.

The pork soup dumplings were hot, but looks like it was reduced to an order of 4 (inflation I suppose but the New York standard is an order of 6) when it was an order of 5 a couple months back; also lacked flavor. Instead they ask you to mix soy sauce and white vinegar to add to the taste, which they didn’t even have ginger and black vinegar available (a very basic standard in Shanghainese cuisine). Not so great start but maybe the pan fried soup dumplings were the star , or so we thought. That was also flavorless - lots of soup and that’s about it. Crab flavor and original pork flavor had no difference except the outside dough coloring, not a single strand of crab in sight. And lastly as something as simple as scallion pancake was basically a scallion cracker; so thin to the point where it was an oily flake.

TLDR; the menu needs a lot of work. Service was also slow and food came out in the incorrect order, plates were not cleared when waiters came to drop off food. Price was at least 30% higher and 25% smaller than the rest of Shanghainese cuisine in New York, but lacked any authentic flavor. A simple detail such as having the correct vinegar was not offered, showing the lack of attention to present authentic Shanghainese food in the city. Perhaps passable to the average midtown tourist, but is the equivalent of sitting down for Panda Express in the tongue of Chinese person. Would recommend traveling down to Chinatown or Flushing for a better experience.

P.S. would think it is in the best interest to fix the front door thats labeled wrong, should be PUSH...

The pan fried soup dumplings and the pork soup dumplings were amazing. The soup inside was scorchingly hot despite biting a hole and waiting for it to cool off so be careful. The bacon siumai was packed full of flavor and surprisingly didn’t have shrimp, so my partner was finally open to eating siumai for the first time. The pork bao buns were enjoyable but not the stars of the show. The beef and pepper udon noodles were slightly colder than lukewarm and the flavor did not impress me. I was upset that the milk pudding was not in the shape of 3D bunnies as advertised but were instead flat pumpkins, but the flavor was not bad. It had a yuzu syrup drizzled on top. Would not get the Thai tea again - overpriced at $5.50, didn’t have a strong enough flavor of the Thai tea, and was overly diluted.

It gets pretty busy at lunch, and there is a bit of a wait. You have to sign in on the iPad to get on the waitlist, but the app kept freezing that day and the employee wasn’t doing a good job instructing new customers to sign in or helping them fix the iPad. You can order by scanning a QR code on the table but when we were seated, it was covered with the menus and no one told us about it. We ended up sitting waiting for our order to be taken until we saw it 10 minutes later. The food came out fast after ordering it though.

Overall I would recommend this place, but would come at a less busy...