My boyfriend has been bugging me for weeks to come here. We stopped by once at 7pm and they were closed. On this night we thought we would try it again, we found out they have only been open for 2 weeks! So the night we stopped by they were still training. He was so excited he could barely contain himself, we walk in to a large 2 story room filled with Asians always a good sign for a shanghais style restaurant! I was as usual the only white person and we were probably the only one language couple in the place and that one language not being Mandarin or Shanghainese. We were really looking forward to this!
As we gaze at the menu we knew it was going to be hard they had little to no english on the menu besides the actual menu items. That is not a problem we have been to countries were no one speaks our language and we are lucky if we have pictures to decide what we will eat. But here in the US we usually reserve these places for when his dad comes to town to help us navigate the menu. So we relied on the waitress who spoke good english. We told her we are open to anything and that me (the white girl will try anything) She recommended a few things and we sat waiting with anticipation for our meal.
Munchies roasted peanuts with salt, Nummy!
1. Cabbage in Chefs special sauce $8.50 cooked cabbage in a thick broth of sorts. Was my favorite of the night the sauce was so good I did add the cabbage with a healthy portion of sauce to my rice and enjoyed over and over again. 5stars
2. Xiao Long Bao $7.50 Oh boy were we excited to see this one if you have read my earlier reviews you will know I am a critic after having the real thing in Shanghai. These are homemade however the dumpling wrapper is to thick and over powers the actually goodness inside (not much soup) but with that said if you're new to them you will not break them but eat them right away. 2 stars
3. Waitress recommendation Pork Ribs in sweet & sour sauce $9.50 good but not great will not order again. It was good but nothing to write home about average to less to any another place in town. 2 stars
4. Waitress recommendation Curry Sirloin in clay pot $12.50. The meat was nice well done but the sauce was watered down and nill to none as far as the sauce goes it was filled however with boiled radish that took on the flavor of the curry but just didn't cut it for me. I felt for that price more meat should have been added. 2 stars
We did add sides of rice they do not have brown rice.
2 of the 4 items ordered were our choice the other 2 were the waitresses. We felt her choices were a watered down version of other places we have been to in town nothing to come back for. The Xiao Long Bao were a disappointment we will not go back for those. The only really good item was the Cabbage in Chefs special sauce and sadly that is not enough to fill a belly unless you lived in long ago days.
We will be back to give it another shot but we were sadly disappointed in this experience. But if you read Shanghainese you may find some hidden treasures that I would love to hear about and try on my next visit!