New Shanghai Melbourne review: xiao long bao soup dumplings will have you begging for more
They’re juicy, meaty and lip-scalding hot — you’ll never forget your first xiao long bao, but are these the city’s best?
Food
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Never mind Diana (in a cafe in Lagos, Portugal), the Twin Towers (walking by a bar in London’s Notting Hill Gate) or Elvis dying on the dunny (oh, but a twinkle in my father’s eye), I’ll never forget where I was when I tasted my first xiao long bao.
The romantic version would have me slurping my first soup dumpling at some smoky Shanghai streetside diner, but it was instead down one of Melbourne’s CBD laneways at a restaurant named after Beijing’s laneways that I first saw GOD (greatest of dumplings).
It was 2010, and the moment of pure revelatory pleasure, of discovering the sleight-of-hand magic of a pork dumpling filled also with its rich, fatty broth, is forever etched in my mind. Never mind the blistered lip from the scalding soup, the splurts on my shirt or the soy splashed on my lap — the art of nibbling a corner to first blow and then sip the soup before downing the dumpling in one took some practise to master — it remains one of my all-time great food memories.
Hu Tong introduced me and our city to xiao long bao, but it was a few years later at the Emporium’s genre-redefining food court that New Shanghai introduced me to the best.
Beginning in suburban Sydney, New Shanghai has grown into an empire of outposts across the eastern seaboard and the group’s chefs — who are on show at each restaurant’s entry — deftly hand-design more than five million Shanghainese soup dumplings a year.
But those delicate dumplings are now joined by cool cocktails, “Chinese-style” tapas, a large bar area and expansive outdoor dining in the newest addition to the stable, which has taken over the Collins St end of the St Collins Lane food court.
With a beaut balcony overlooking the leafy treetops of Collins St and space for more than 300 diners inside and out, it’s another sure sign of confidence in our CBD returning to busy, bustling life. While it’s still early-days quiet, the multi-zoned space is as welcoming for a few beers and a couple of bites after work as it is a full family banquet, with loads of greenery and comfortable booth seating throughout.
With more than 200 items of noodles, dumplings and various proteins braised or deep fried, the menu is dauntingly extensive but it’s the “small eat” side of the ledger that differentiates this new addition and affords the flexibility to mix and match a few, or as many, tastes as you like.
Grilled skewers — think Japanese yakitori, but with added Sichuan pepper — are the mainstay of these snacks. Among more than a dozen, there’s lamb sprinkled with cumin salt that’s meaty and more-ish with the right amount of fatty goodness ($9), glisteningly golden nubbins of chicken brushed with prawn paste ($9), whole baby octopus sprinkled with lemon salt that are smoky, sweet and terrifically tender ($12) and deliciously sticky pork belly with Sichuan pepper spice ($9).
A small bowl of bang bang chicken is bang on, the supple slices of poached chicken tossed through a hot, nutty and numbing sauce that’s best mates with a beer ($8.50), while slivers of spicy pork tongue ($8.80) sprinkled with sesame and chives is satisfyingly chewy and lip tinglingly good.
Prawn toast to dip in a luridly purple plum sauce is the type of fried food that makes so much sense after a couple of drinks ($8.80 for four), but so, too, does the flaky cheese and spring onion pancake ($6.50) and crisp pork ribs to gnaw from the bone ($9).
But the standout dish across this table full of plates was the Shanghai smoked fish, where five-spice sprinkled fish is fried and soaked in a sweet soy marinade leaving the flesh tender soft with chewy edges with a hint of smoke, salt and sweet in every chopstick-full ($14.50).
There’s a half dozen beers on tap and a few interesting Chinese brews in the fridge alongside Tsingtao, while a French-leaning wine list has a nice showing of aromatic whites and juicy reds around the $45-a-bottle mark.
And those XLB? Still as brilliantly delicate and deliciously more-please as ever ($4.50 for three), as are the pan-fried pork buns ($8.50 for three).
As perfect for a post-shopping pit-stop or somewhere to meet for a drink and snack before a show as it is a dining destination in its own right, hidden in plain sight this new New Shanghai is memorable for all the right reasons.
NEW SHANGHAI
Level 2, St Collins Lane 260 Collins St, Melbourne
Mon-Wed 11.30am-3pm; Thurs-Sun from 11.30am-9-10pm
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