Shanghai Village

Location: 112 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
Cuisine: Chinese, Dumplings

Who wants cheap dumplings? Me!!

After initially planning to try out the Post-Deng Cafe and finding out that a vast majority of the food was spicy (it was a warm day and my two companions are not fans of spice), we wandered by Shanghai Village and decided that it was going to be dumpling day.

Fried pork dumplings

Nice and crispy, and very juicy on the inside. These dumplings were an instant hit for me. There was quite a fair bit of meat inside and the oil from frying had been drained off quite well. Nothing is worse than oily drippy dumplings.

Steamed pork dumplings

These were equally as good (although my two companies loved this one more). The filling was the same, but the pastry was much more noticeable on these ones. Nice and even thickness, not too thick but strong enough to hold the meat and soup inside.

Szechuan mince sauce noodles

This was a disappointment.The mince and sauce lacked flavour and was quite bland, which along with some fresh cucumber and plain noodles, did not make a very appealing dish. We didn't even finish this one.

Xiao long bao!

These were pretty good, but not as good as HuTong. The meat and soup inside were nice and tasty, but the pastry was just too thick and not quite sealed. Soup would escape out of the top 'spiral' if you took your first bite elsewhere.

All in all, go here for the dumplings. From previous visits, they have some nice noodle soup dishes as well. Don't expect much service - they'll take your order and bring you the food, you get everything else yourself, which is fine by me given the prices are relatively cheap.

Overall Impression: 7.5/10