Shanghai Dumpling Shop

455 Broadway
Millbrae, CA 94030

Occasion: Sunday brunch! I've been meaning to come here for Xiao Long Baos and northern Chinese food.

Soybean Milk

Something to help the food digest into the system. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. I liked that it wasn't too sweet, but I didn't like the pieces of what seemed to be powder particles in it.

Lions Head Meatball

When we were waiting to be seated, I swear almost every table had this dish. I was curious to give it a try and see why a majority of the tables had ordered it. Maybe I'm just not that big of a meat person, but I did not think too highly of this dish. The flavor is different and it was hard for me to even finish half of this. My friend on the other hand, loved everything about it from the flavor to the tenderness of the meat. He ate like two whole ones by himself including the half I couldn't finish.

Shanghai Style Stir fried Rice Cakes
I love rice cakes and I thought this one just tasted ok. It wasn't bad at all, but it was as good as I had expected it to be. I've been meaning to go to a really good Shanghainese restaurant in the bay area. After reading the reviews of this place I thought I'd give it a try. I guess the greater the expectation, the greater the dissappointment. Or their style of marinating their meat or cooking their food just isn't my style at all.

Soup Dumplings aka Xiao Long Bao

I was quite dissappointed when I took my first bite out of a xiao long bao. Why? Because it was dry and there wasn't enough soup in it. After I came back from New York and had tried Joe's Shanghai's Xiao Long Bao, I've been craving it. I am on a search to look for the bay area's best xiao long baos. Not only did it taste just mediocre and the fact that it was a bit on the dry side, I found dust particles on my second xiao long bao. That really disgusted me. I almost wanted to return the whole platter. Luckily the person I was eating with did not care and ate the 3-4 xiao long baos with dust particles on it. So disgusting! Seriously though, how does something like that happen?