My husband is in bad birthday rehab. He’s had too many disappointing birthdays to count, from when he was young and given a bag of rocks from the garden to when he was older and received a box of toilet cleaning supplies. He’s understandably scarred by the concept. I on the other hand adore birthdays and love to celebrate them for at least a weekend. I also love other people’s birthdays from the ritual of selecting a present for them, wrapping the gift and writing the card and seeing their face when they open it. So I take my mission seriously to make him love birthdays again and what the birthday boy wants he gets. Sort of. His favourite restaurant is Shanghai Night in Ashfield, the place where for a mere $6.60 he can get a massive 18 piece serving of dumplings. I was only too happy to go here but in true food blogger fashion, I felt that I should try somewhere new-ish. He agreed to the compromise I suggested, trying the Shanghai dumpling place next door to Shanghai Night. There, at least he’d be guaranteed of his beloved 18 dumplings.

New Shanghai Chinese restaurant is indeed right next to Shanghai Night. Inside it looks brighter and newer with small plasma screens showing a rotation of the items on offer. It’s slightly wider than Shanghai Night next door by about 2 metres. The configuration is different, with the cashier towards the back and the dumpling makers behind a glass screen on show for customers and some booths to the right (which currently have some dumplings abandoned mid preparation).

Service is friendlier than that at Shanghai Night and while we see a lot of familiar items, namely the dumplings, prices are higher by a dollar or two. There are also some unusual dishes and of course, being the visual creatures that we are, we are enticed by the items in the pictures.

We order and the dishes trickle out slowly, one by one. None of this fast and furious pace that we get at Shanghai night (which we actually prefer).

Famous new shanghai steamed mini pork buns $6.80 for 8

The first item we receive is the Xiao Long Bao, the famous mini pork buns with hot soupy interior which explodes with the first bite. We notice that there aren’t too many punctures (good) but the hot soup and filling is missing the ginger zing which we adore in the Shanghai Night dumplings.

Steamed Pork with coriander dumplings $7.80 for 18

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