Dumplings worth flying across the Pacific Ocean for…
Yang’s Dumpling – Chinese name: 小杨生煎馆 or xiao yang sheng jian guan 生煎包 – is a popular fried dumpling shop serving pan fried pork bun or Sheng jian bao, a Shanghainese Chinese dish. It was formed in Shanghai in 1994 by Mrs. Yang, who still keeps her recipe secret. They have many locations in Shanghai and are opening more all the time even in Austrailia. We dined at the Shanghai Huanghe location nearest to our hotel by People’s Square.
Why did we dine here? – Dumpling Home was featured in the SF Chronicle for Xiao Long Bao or Soup Dumplings making us really want to try it.
Shanghai Flavor Shop is an inexpensive restaurant in a second rate strip mall. This diamond in the rough is located in sleepy Sunnyvale, and specializes in Shanghainese Chinese cuisine. To the right of this restaurant is the popular Indian Buffet: Sankranti
Why did we dine here? – China Live is a $20 million Chinese food extravaganza from Chef George Chen and crew. (Shanghai 1930, Betelnut, etc) Very ambitious, this complex seeks to help put Chinatown back on the map along with Mister Jiu. Billed as an Eataly of Chinese Food, we were chomping at the bit to try it, but waited 3 weeks for things to settle down. The food was still marginal at that point. We returned about 2 months after it opened and found things a lot better. They focus on high quality ingredients: organic, local, etc…
Soup Dumplings! Why did we dine here? – Chef Zhao Kitchen is a Shanghai Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto, near 101 and Embarcadero. This is a sister restaurant to Cupertino’s Shanghai Garden.
Confusing things, Chef Zhao Bistros in Mountain View and San Mateo are unrelated both cuisine-wise and with owners. This restaurant has been getting some good local buzz, so it was time to check it out.
Why did we dine here? – Da Chun is an old school Sheng jian bao restaurant. We love Yang’s Dumplings (Xiao Yang) and try to eat there everytime we visit Shanghai, but made sure we visit the harbinger of this genre. This restaurant has several locations, yet we chose the Da Shi Jie outpost as it is supposed to be the best.
We recently finished a culinary tour of China. Shanghai is a world class city full of great food. Most of the food was different from food in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Here are some quick mini reviews of places we ate at, so you can understand how Shanghai food compares, and so you select the best places on your visit. If a restaurant does not have a website, we link to their dianping page.