Yum! We've been eyeing this place since it opened and we're so glad we were able to finally make a trip here. We came here for Friday night dinner and managed to snag a table for two immediately. Five minutes after we sat down, people were starting to line up at the door. The place was fairly cozy, the exterior gave the restaurant a deceptively large appearance. It seemed someone made some effort on the decor; interesting prints of women from Shanghai's golden era were interspersed throughout the walls.
The service was surprisingly kind and efficient; no attitude and very congenial wait staff.
The food... mmm. I'm a sucker for xiao long bao and this place is very tasty. The little soup filled buns came steaming hot in short order followed quickly by the Royal Dumplings which were not what I expected at all. They were these three yummy 'open faced' soup filled morsels of deliciousness! They did not look like dumplings and in fact did not look like anything that I have ever seen. While I gladly chowed them down, I thought it was a bit pricy for just three pieces. The Shanghai stir fried rice cakes were very well made. This is a simple dish that is often marred by too much oil or too hard rice cakes. Here, the rice cakes were soft, the meat-veggie-rice cake ratio was well-balanced and there was not remnant of oil soup on the plate after the dish was inhaled. Finally, we had the pan fried buns. They were probably the best that I have ever had. The white dough was springy and soft, the meat filling delicious and the oil was kept to a minimum.
This place has me dreaming of xiao long bao and pan fried buns. I will be coming back here very soon!