Shanghai Dumpling King — Restaurant in San Francisco

Not authentic at all, sorry. The name of the restaurant is Shanghai Dumpling, but it was both precisely the “Shanghainese” dishes (weren’t that many on the menu to begin with) and the dumplings that were the worst. As someone who grew up in Shanghai.. I know my soup dumplings. Shengjianbao 生煎包was too fluffy, barely any meat inside, no soup inside, no green onions, and bottom wasn’t pan fried correctly. It was made all wrong, so I know for a fact that the owner isn’t shanghainese and might be cantonese. Xiaolongbao 小笼包was so big, lacked soup, and the meat inside (as well as the meat inside most other dumplings we tried) tasted like weird soft mush. Nearly everything else was a disappointment as well and there were a lot of spicy dishes which is not really a Shanghainese thing. Spicy chili wonton was no good.. so weird how it was drenched in an entire layer of very viscous sauce so every dumpling was like stuck. I think the best dishes were the vegetables. We also ordered the Shanghai style noodles and some of the beef pieces were too grisly and hard to chew. Glad I gave this place a try anyway but I should’ve known better being...

I liked 50% of what I ordered. Seeing as how they are relatively new here are some suggestions to improve things.

Recommended items: Beijing pancake, shrimp and chive dumplings.

Service: Stop running or hire more experienced servers. It doesn’t really speed things up and adds an overall frantic-ness to the experience.

Food: Soup dumplings - remove the gristle before grinding the meat. The soup was light bodied and excellent. The flavor of the meat was nice and the grind size was great. I got an average of 1 gristle bit in each dumpling.

Lamb dumplings - there was way too much filler in the filling. It became one monotonous consistency because of the filler.

Tendon dish - I really enjoyed the thinly sliced tendon but it was a bit too thin to stay in balance with the thicker julienned cucumber. The tendon was also frozen which is the only way to slice it that thin but it was served with parts of the tendon still frozen. Crunching on ice really takes away from the texture of the tendon and it wouldn’t be much effort to let the sliced tendon thaw a bit more...

The return of one of the best Chinese restaurants in SF!!! The newest location of Shanghai Dumpling King (other one on Monterey Blvd). Long time fans and newcomers alike will find the same incredible food and wonderful staff that has made Shanghai Dumpling King standout.

I was devastated when the beloved Balboa location closed a few years ago and have been making the trip to Monterey Blvd ever since. So I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the new sign out of the corner of my eye. It turns out many of their customers had been asking them to open up somewhere closer. It's a miracle.

So much delicious food here you can't go wrong. The soup dumplings are top tier. Favorites include the scallion pancake, potstickers, green beans, mapo tofu, dan dan noodles, salt and pepper fish, and spicy wontons. Order anything on the menu, you won't be disappointed.

I was so happy I ate the food before I got a chance to take pictures. I will updated...