OMG! I finally found an acceptable soup dumpling place near Toronto to fill the soup dumpling void I felt since I left NYC with no access to Shanghai Cafe. I wish this place is downtown so I can go all the time!
The pork soup dumplings (xiao long bao) are great, the skin is thin and has a slightly elastic texture, the filling is moist and soup and flavorful (lots of pork fat in there).
The other dumplings are good too but not super duper, we had the shrimp and pork Siu Mai which was 3X the size of a normal siu mai, the meat was good and shrimp is fresh but I found the wrapping a bit too thick. The boiled pork and shrimp dumpling was nice and again was significantly bigger than a normal size dumpling and the grilled pork dumplings were yummy.
A serious miss was the sticky rice and pork dumpling because it had practically no pork and the thick wrapping plus rice was a bad combo. It was carbs on carbs and was bland and had a displeasing texture.
The tripe dish was good, the tripe was tender and flavorful, but it was loaded with grease (it leaves oil marks on your plate and was literally dripping in oil).
Overall, the place is clean and the price is affordable, we were stuffed for ~$13 each. I will return for the soup dumplings and probably not bother with any of the other dishes. I just wish there was a downtown location and that they steamed the soup dumplings on Napa cabbage like people traditionally do (I like to use the cabbage to cleanse my palate) (they steam on paper here).