Shanghai Street

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146-148 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, 9662 3226

My score: 3.5/5

If dumpling dogmatism delivered us from evil I’d screech and shout about them until dusk on doomsday. However, it doesn’t, so I’m not going to make a pronouncement about which of Melbourne’s dumplings is best. Rather, I’m going to celebrate the fact that we’re in any position to have hair-splitting arguments about dumplings at all. It wasn’t always so. Shanghai Street is not the newest, biggest or most photogenic purveyor of pastry packages but it’s so unrelentingly popular that there are three branches in the city (all with queue management policies) and another in Prahran.

A large part of the restaurant’s fame rests on their freshly made xiao long bao, number one on the 100-item menu. One of Shanghai’s most famous exports, these steamed dumplings encase minced pork and aspic-turned-soup inside a laden, translucent skin. The trick is to nip a portal in the casing with your teeth and slurp the soup before biting into the remainder. Shanghai Street’s dumplings are bigger than some; I needed three chomps to get them into me. But what bites they were: meaty sweet, sticky and slightly spiced. I rate xiao long bao by the cone of silence they create: if the world goes quiet while the dumpling goes down then they’re good. These turned Melbourne to a whisper.

It’s not just dumplings. I also like the cold poached chicken smothered in spicy peanut sauce (number 32) and the claypot of clear porky broth, soybean curd sheets rolled like crepes and greens (number 58). Service is factory-efficient: you’ll be pushed to order while queuing and you fetch tea from a thermos in the corner. It’s perfunctory but not uncaring, based on an assumption that we all prize swift dispatch above all else. As one frequently afflicted by dumpling emergencies, I can only concur.

See their website.

More dumplings:

Din Tai Fung, Level 4, Emporium, 287 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, 9654 1876.
A frenzy of excitement accompanied the recent opening of this Melbourne branch of a famous Taiwanese dumpling chain. The steamed dumplings and buns are great; I’m also a fond fan of the dan dan noodles

ShanDong MaMa Mini, Shop 5, Centre Place, Melbourne, 0417 222 771.
One of the lovely things about this tiny dumpling house is that they keep the menu lively with specials: it’s fun to be surprised by the contents of your pastry parcel.

Lost Heaven, Level 2, 206 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 9650 2188.
Sichuan spicy hotpots are the big deal here but the xiao long bao and pan-fried dumplings are a tasty sideline.

First published in The Age, September 6th, 2015.