Shanghai Chinese Bistro - 2006.06.04 -- ***

We looked into a whole bunch of restaurants along a sidestreet off the Robson thoroughfare. I was planning on trying a japanese place, it being Vancouver and all, but we also wanted to try XLB at this multicultural city of much asian influence. So we waited 2 minutes for this restaurant to open, along with a large party of multi-national friends hankering for dimsum.

Despite the Shanghai in their sign, most of their dimsum items were cantonese, and judging by what everone else was ordering, those were the good items. Our Xiao Long Bao came oversized and partially filled with some vegetables. They were more like a steamed dumpling with soup than XLB. The Shen Jian reminded me of the giant meat buns from Loon Wah down in cupertino one unfortuate Sunday morning.

But they did have on offering You Tiao (fried bread stick) wrapped in sticky rice with preserved vegetable and shredded pork. It wasn't bad, and surprisingly Amnon took to it quite nicely. Brings me back to the days where we'd have this for breakfast on special weekend mornings, I always dipping mine in sugar, per the tradition of my father's family. Along with that I also ordered a savory bowl of soy milk. No curdling, but at least the ingredients were all present from pieces of You Tiao down to dried shrimp skins.

House made, hand-made Shanghai noodles arrived nicely stirfried with soy sauce and spicy Japanese eggplants. The noodle could use a good dose more of glutten, but flavoring was right. I would guess this place would be better for meal fares rather than dimsum. Unfortunately, the copious amount of starch filled our bellies to the disappointment of prospect Japanese restaurants.