Shanghai River

Ethnic Eats is back in force and today welcomes Travis Smith, our first guest writer, who recently made a foray to Richmond to Shanghai River. He writes regularly at Unvarnished.

I had two pick up two people at the airport, 3 hours apart, and thought to myself — why waste a trip over the bridge? So I made a reservation at Shanghai River in Richmond, whose Xiao Long Bao are said to be the best around… but more on that later.

I was quickly reminded of Richmond’s broad roads with narrow or no sidewalks, and getting parking at the restaurant itself proved a bit tricky. Impossible tip: Turn into the parking garage driveway just before you see the restaurant sign because by the time you see it, you’re past the entrance.

Shanghai River presents a typical Chinese dining room experience: large round tables with crisp white tablecloths, waiters in plain shirts and solid ties with one blue-shirted manager supervising the bill-paying procedure. Reservations are recommended, and many of the menu options were built for groups of 4,6,8 or 10.

But we were just a group of three, which was oh-so-sad because their glossy coffee-table-book-style menu promised such deliciousness on offer if only we had had more people to share with. The menu itself was a fabulous work — but sadly, several of the menu items were not available when we asked; perhaps because we dined late, or perhaps because it’s really hard to change a bound book when food items become hard to procure.

We appetized ourselves with Xiao Long Bao (their most popular item) and three deep fried shrimp paste balls on a crab claw. The bao are superb — a flavourful clear broth and loosely bound pork filling in a tender dumpling wrap that is a true test of chopstick finesse. You must nibble a hole and suck out the piping hot soup, then pop the dumpling in your mouth, all without tearing the delicate dough. I wish there was a second batch.

The shrimp balls were the only sour note of the evening, literally and figuratively. Imagine eating deep fried silly putty (come on, you know you’ve wanted to) that, because of the extruding claw, looks like an alien creature hatching. It was too hot, burning my mouth (OK, fine, that could have been partially my fault), and tasting powerfully of … nothing in particular. I found myself wondering if I could remove the batter and play squash with the balls instead.

The lamb rack was stellar if not too Chinese, and the surprise of the evening was “fish fillet in seaweed,” which turned out to be oh-so-lightly tempura’d and came with straight Worcestershire sauce that was a wonderful accompaniment.

The service started out slow, got better, and then dwindled at the end, but I prefer that to an overly attentive waitstaff when you’re trying to pick through so many menu items, or when you’re in no hurry to leave. Still, this isn’t a dash-in, dash-out place. If possible, ask for a table with a view of the kitchen — the dumpling makers are visible from some of the dining room behind a floor-to-ceiling glass window that makes for fun watching.

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Shanghai River Restaurant
110 – 7831 Westminster Hwy. Richmond, BC