25 Tattersalls Lane, Melbourne
OK, so I LOVE Shanghai dumpling. This is probably the only restaurant I have waited outside in the rain for! Yes, I go there a lot, and yes, there have been stories of cockroaches in the kitchen, and yes the staff are rude (there is one particularly vile girl who usually is working upstairs, and every time you look in her general direction she looks at you like she is going to come into your bedroom at night while you are sleeping and slit your throat), and yes I pretty much order the same thing every time I go, but this place is a Melbourne institution. I always take interstate visitors there, and a meal plus a beer always costs $15.
I’m not too keen on the recent introduction of the ‘banquet’, it seems to me just a way to get customers to spend more money in the restaurant. I tried the banquet and found we didn’t eat half the food. I guess usually when I go there I am usually lining my stomach after a couple of after work drinks, in between the first place and the next place, so I’m not looking for a huge feed, just a quick cheap bite.
They also do BYO and corkage is quite cheap, so if you have a group you can bring a bottle of something. I usually just go for the $5 Tiger or Tsing-Tsao beers though, because it’s not the kind of place you tend to kick back with a couple of vinos. As soon as you arrive you are expected to order (no mulling over the menu!!), and as soon as you stop eating you are hustled out the door, which I like because it’s one of the reasons the food so cheap and is all part of its charm.
If you haven’t already visited Shanghai Dumpling, do so immediately, even if you are just going to bitch about it. It’s one of those places you need to know about if you’re going to call yourself a Melbournian.
OK, so I LOVE Shanghai dumpling. This is probably the only restaurant I have waited outside in the rain for! Yes, I go there a lot, and yes, there have been stories of cockroaches in the kitchen, and yes the staff are rude (there is one particularly vile girl who usually is working upstairs, and every time you look in her general direction she looks at you like she is going to come into your bedroom at night while you are sleeping and slit your throat), and yes I pretty much order the same thing every time I go, but this place is a Melbourne institution. I always take interstate visitors there, and a meal plus a beer always costs $15.
I’m not too keen on the recent introduction of the ‘banquet’, it seems to me just a way to get customers to spend more money in the restaurant. I tried the banquet and found we didn’t eat half the food. I guess usually when I go there I am usually lining my stomach after a couple of after work drinks, in between the first place and the next place, so I’m not looking for a huge feed, just a quick cheap bite.
They also do BYO and corkage is quite cheap, so if you have a group you can bring a bottle of something. I usually just go for the $5 Tiger or Tsing-Tsao beers though, because it’s not the kind of place you tend to kick back with a couple of vinos. As soon as you arrive you are expected to order (no mulling over the menu!!), and as soon as you stop eating you are hustled out the door, which I like because it’s one of the reasons the food so cheap and is all part of its charm.
If you haven’t already visited Shanghai Dumpling, do so immediately, even if you are just going to bitch about it. It’s one of those places you need to know about if you’re going to call yourself a Melbournian.
EPILOGUE TO SHANGHAI DUMPLING POST:
OK so the banquet officially SUCKS. Some friends and I went in over Chinese New Year and the only option was banquet. It was awful. Half of the food is fried crap that I wouldn’t order from the normal menu, we just ate it because it was served to us. Also the owner put a plate of fried pork dumplings on our table that he had clearly just taken off another group’s table. They were stone cold and I do I even need to mention the food hygiene implications?? I mean, look, they probably do that behind the scenes, but if that IS what they do, I don’t want to know about it!! It was very blatant and there was no way we were eating them. So under no circumstances should anyone ever order the banquet. I don’t care how good the perceived value is! Normal menu is fine, banquet is not!
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