Shanghai Night Ashfield review - Are the Dumplings Still Worth a Visit?

Shanghai Night is one of the many Shanghai eateries on Liverpool Street in Ashfield and the OG on the strip. It has been a Sydney institution for 35 years after first opening in 1990. And while newer Shanghai restaurants have opened up around it, we still love the original for its well priced, delicious dumplings. So has it changed since the 17 years we last visited? Is it still as good as before? And is it still the place to get a phenomenally cheap, fantastic meal?

The last time we went to Shanghai Night was 17 years ago - not for lack of love but because there are simply so many places to visit in Sydney. It still remains Mr NQN's favourite restaurant and the one that he would eat at every week if he could (and if his wife wasn't taking him to new restaurants). We first ate at Shanghai Night with Queen Viv and Miss America 19 years ago. It was only a few months ago that we learned that they continued to come here once a year for an annual dumpling feast, assuming that we wouldn't want to go because we are always looking for new places.

In the time since our last visit, they have updated the restaurant but not so much that it is no longer recognisable. It's just a little more separated with the live dumpling making behind a glass wall and dumpling masters pleating and folding dumplings during the day and night.

"Look! The blue unicorn poster is still here!" I exclaim excitedly. They have updated with more artwork in place of the old fluorescent orange posters with menu items written in Chinese & English. Nowadays, at least on Saturday night, the clientele is more mixed with more people coming to enjoy Ashfield's superb dumpling restaurants.

The menu remains vast and the prices have not increased that much considering it is almost 2 decades later. Service is friendly from our waitress and Miss America, Queen Viv and Mr NQN leave the ordering to me which is sometimes a mistake because my eyes are often bigger than my stomach. The recommended dishes are marked with a thumbs up and if dishes contain seafood there's a "1" next to them. There are three sauces on the table: vinegar, soy sauce and chilli oil.

We sip on cups of tea and wait for our food to arrive. The first dish to arrive are the two steamers of Xiao Long Bao soup dumplings. The soup dumplings are every bit as good as I remember with the wonderful ginger hit that made this a favourite with us. It's amazing how far back your memory can travel just through a bit of food. The delicate skins remain intact delivering all that soupy goodness to our waiting mouths. And bless them that these are just $10.80 for 8 (17 years ago they were $5.80 for 8).

The sticky rice shao mai were also my favourite as you don't often see these on the menu. I love sticky rice and while these aren't a powerhouse of flavour in comparison to the others, the texture of the sticky rice is fantastic.

The pan fried pork buns are big puffy, crispy bottomed soup dumplings. These are my favourite because of the range of textures and are like a puffy, bready version of xiao long bao with pork filling and soup inside. They're so good as they hold more soup and I ate four of these as they are so addictively good, especially with the chilli oil.

A favourite for Mr NQN and Queen Viv are the prawn and pork dumplings that come as an enormous serve of 18 (you can also order 12). These can also be pan fried which I would have preferred but it's good to have a steamed only option.

Queen Viv does not eat chilli but I wanted to try the dry wonton dumplings with chilli oil and cucumber. These turn out to not be overly spicy at all and they're actually another favourite at the table. The dumplings are a bit more delicate in texture and the light chilli oil touch just really provides flavour rather than excessive heat.

We also try the shallot pancake because I have memories of this. It's not bad although it is quite mild in flavour (I prefer this version). I recommend dipping this into the chilli sauce from the chilli oil dumplings.

Lastly is a noodle dish. They hand make the noodles here so I wanted one noodle dish because while I really like dumplings, I adore noodles. This is the last dish to come out and by the time it arrives I wish I hadn't ordered it because we are so full. However these are excellent hand stretched noodles with a fantastic chewy texture with tasty pork mince and finely chopped cucumber.

And the bill? It's an incredible $97 for all of this food plus enough takeaway to last us for lunch tomorrow. The man taking our money shoves a big handful of guava lollies into my hand, gruffly but sweetly and I hope that it isn't 17 years between visits.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you have a favourite restaurant and how often do you go there?

This meal was independently paid for.