Taste of Shanghai

Happy New Year!
To celebrate New Year, my first lunch, and to achieved my 100^th post, I decided to do this place a review.
Well, been here several times, but this is the first time my visit since this place has been renovated.
I love the décor, reminds me about old Beijing court, poster in the wall and the whole «hutong» atmosphere… Love it!
Ordered XLB, that’s right., you know what this stand for!, Pan fried dumpling and chicken and salty fish fried rice…
I don’t know if I’m hungry or chefs are very happy today, all food was delicious, can found the minus point to write. Well, I hope this is new standard since the refurbishment! Keep it up!
I did ordered plum juice… Taste exactly what I remembered! Nice and refreshing, the sourness just right to cut through greasiness from typical Chinese dishes.
Why I’m not giving 5 star. Well service was not 100%, place is packed and I think there were under staffs.

The food here is pretty decent. It’s no din tai fung quality but it’s priced better. Got fried rice, dumplings, and xlb. The xlb were juicy but not as delicates as DTF, but for its price! I would have to say it’s really good! The dumplings were amazing too… It satisfies my long time dumpling craving. Taste of Shanghai might have the best dumpling (cooked) in Sydney so far! I am yet to try more. If you are down for have some Chinese food and don’t want to wait and be overcharged, tasted of Shanghai is a great option!

There’s very few things better than dumplings. And when you want to eat a lot of them you should come here. The dumplings are delicious and if you want better value for your food than Din Tai Fung then you should definitely come to Taste of Shanghai.
They get three starts because you do have to wait to get in and the service is pretty lousy, but that’s what you kind of expect from somewhere like this. They staff are run off their feet. The food comes quickly though, if you can find someone to flag down and take your order. I think we waited about 20 minutes before I could get someone’s attention at one point just to get some water for the table.

What Barry said.

The pan-​fried pork buns get five stars. I had dreams about them even after returning to the states. It’s unlike the pan-​fried pork buns back home, where they just literally pan fry a bun, thus leaving the bottoms flat. The buns aren’t as fluffy either. At Taste of Shanghai, they must use some sort of mold to fry them, because they come out with perfect, golden, rounded bottoms.
Caution: Dangerously hot soup inside.
This place is located underneath the hyped-​up Din Tai Fung, and we loved Taste of Shanghai so much, we went back twice without bothering with Din Tai Fung. The other menu items were decent, definitely out-​shined by the pan fried pork buns.
Until I find a place in California that makes them like Taste of Shanghai does, I’ll keep on dreaming.

Came here for a very late night dinner on friday with 9 ppl, very crowded. Staff was short, so took a while for things to come. We ordered steamed dumplings, pan fried buns, stir fry snake beans, eggplant pot, sichuan chicken, radish pastries. Food and serving size was good. Half the bowl in the sichuan chicken was chilli. Radish pastries were cold inside, didn’t heat up enough, that was bad.

Chinatown. Taste of Shanghai. What could be bad? The good was that they were open. Most restaurants in Sydney don’t seem to keep very late hours.
Though we got there right before closing, it was very crowded and noisy. The huge menu took a lot of time to go through, and though this is considered a cheap restaurant, it was nearly twice what we pay at home.
We ordered by picture, and what we thought we were getting when we chose Stir-​Fry Chili Chicken was a dish of cubed chicken with an eye-​pleasing mix of red and green peppers. Reality was another story: those innocuous red and green peppers were not bell peppers, they were CHILI peppers, and it was hard to find any chicken mixed into this conflagration. I took a picture of the dish with my phone; alas, if there is a way to post a photo on Unilocal that’s not taken within the app, I have no idea how to do it. There were enough seeds in those peppers to start a chili farm. One bite and we had to send it back. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem, and we were able to get another dish with less fire. The second dish we ordered wasn’t memorable at all.
Halfway through dinner, they closed, and began lining up all the chairs in the big dining area in preparation for washing the floors. There were still people eating, and it was almost as noisy as when every table was filled.
Overall, an unpleasant dining experience with food that didn’t win any prizes.

Adequate for the slightly cheaper pricing. Xiaolongbao is flavoursome but quite greasy. Pan fried pork buns are the star of the restaurant. Admirable effort. However overall slightly less refined and delicate compared to its main competition upstairs.

This is a poor man’s alternative to Din Tai Fung located upstairs at World Square. However it can be equally as busy and sometimes the wait times are as bad as DTF. The standard fare at this place is dumplings, xiao long bao and noodles. There are a few different variations of the dumplings and they are served quite quickly.
The fried rice isn’t bad and is a pretty serving for about $ 13.
For those that live nearby, getting takeway is probably a good option as this place does get very crowded and rowdy during dinner sessions.

Fantastic xiao long bao for much less than the competition like Din Tai Fung. Food is nearly as good. More variety too with spicy and crab options.
Great food, good service.

Great value food (also tasty). Service is what I would expect from Chinatown eateries (they are more about food or value for money).
Anyway, I think It’s a good alternative when you can’t be bothered waiting at Din Tai Fung or prefer to get more bang for your buck.

The staff here are extremely rude and will outright lie about messing up your order and things like that.
This restaurant cannot even cook rice; our rice came out wet and soggy.
Please avoid this restaurant unless you wish to have an extremely unpleasant dining experience. A quick look at foursquare, urbanspoon and other review sites confirms that my experience was not an isolated incident.
BAD FOOD, BAD SERVICE
AVOID.

This is the dim sum place I go to if I can’t get into Din Tai Fung or don’t feel like Sea Bay. Its pretty standard in terms of food, service and ambience. Because there is nothing particularly special about this place, I can’t really comment on anything else really! Come here if you feel like dumplings, bao or noodles but don’t want to move outside of the World Square complex (for whatever reasons).