Shanghai Cafe

Try their buns, being wary of their hot easy-to-spill juice and the restaurant's rude waiters.

It's a cold and rainy day, so soup dumplings couldn't be a more perfect dish. I've never had them before, so I can't compare this to other restaurants, but I can't imagine anything better. They come with a salty vinegar sauce flavored with scallions and slivers of pickled ginger, and $4.25 buys you 8 (8!) generous dumplings. They're like an inside out meatball soup. Really fantastic. As far as the restaurant goes, the decor is decidedly much nicer than standard Chinatown. It's clean, with background music that's pleasant and not distracting. I'm definitely going back.

I went to this place for lunch one day with some chums. We consider ourselves Soup dumpling experts, and have tried the just about everywhere in Chinatown that has them. These were the very best by a wide margin (Goody's is second. The rest of the food was so-so. Nice big portions, well made, but a bit lackluster as to flavoring. But you MUST do the dumplings!

My friends and I ate here for a birthday party. We had a tough time with reservations for 12 people. Once seated, it took a long time to get the waiter's attention so he could take our order. The food took a while to come out, some people finished their dishes before others even got them. The waiters came to our table and told us to hurry up, as there were other people waiting for seats. Appalled, we hurried and left a small tip for their rude service. As we were leaving, the waiter actually asked for more tip!

One of my favorite restaurants in NYC. I usually go in a group of 10 friends, and we often eat for under 50 dollars. Service is not too bad, and even with 10 people, we've never had to wait longer than 15 minutes for a table during peak dinner hours. Waitresses are usually pretty good about servicing tables, refilling water, etc. An overall nice experience, and the vegetable steamed dumplings are delish!

This restaurant has redefined the nyc norm of quality food =small portions=expensive price. Simply stated the portions at this place are enormous and the quality is exceptional (particularly for Chinese take-out), all at below nyc market prices. The fried rice is light and delicately flavored, I've had it several times and it has never been too greasy or over salted as is common among most Chinese take-out. The Lo-mein is very good and maintains the right sauce-to-noodle ratio which most other places can't seem to figure out (or can?t maintain it if they do). The seaweed salad is exceptional not to mention the unfinishable size of the portion, which goes for all the dishes mentioned. I personally find the pork dumplings a bit too salty but overall you can't go wrong with the quality of the dim sum here. The place is ideal for lunch and dinner take-out, keep in mind the exceptional size of the portions when ordering though, my wife brought home $23 worth of food from here and we easily had enough left-overs that could last for 3+ days!

Order ANY shanghainese specialty and I guarantee you won't go wrong! Everything is wonderful!