Shanghai Village

This review is only because the place no longer exists. It’s now Wang’s Taiwan Beef Noodle House.

Hands down — the best xiaolongbao (Chinese soup dumplings) that you will ever have! At least that we’ve tried on the W. coast, including SF. They arrive hot and fresh at your table generously filled with soup. Very tasty when you add the vinegar to it. Another one of my favourites is the red bean paste pastry. It’s a hit or miss here as it was perfected at previous visits where the pastry is a golden color, crisp with enough red bean paste. Most recently it was soggy and it didn’t appear to be baked long enough as the pastry was still white. I’ve been told that the restaurant doesn’t use MSG but expect a heavy dose of sodium. A must try if you’re craving Shanghainese cuisine.

Great Shanghainese food without the attitude. You won’t be limited to an hour for dinner like some of the other establishments in Richmond if you have a large party.
The xia long bao is tasty with extra hot soup the way it should be and they always have specials that come with a free order on the house with a minimum spend.

After finding out that the restaurant we were suppose to go to was closed for the night… we stumbled upon this little gem. The service was a little slow, it took a while to even have the waitress notice us, then a couple more minutes to get our menus. But once we did finally get them, we found great «safe» choices and wonderful exciting dishes!
We decided on the fish noodles with enoki mushrooms (this dish won some award), and the usual Shanghai noodles and juicy dumplings. The fish noodles had delicious clean flavours allowing you to taste both the fish flavour of the noodles and the mushrooms. Definitely a very nice light dish.
The Shanghai noodles was the surprise of the night. I LOVE this dish, and have it every time I go to a Shanghai restaurant… and this is definitely in the top 3! There was just the right amount of noodles and cabbage/​meat/​mushrooms. The noodles were not too saucy or oily. I would have ordered a second plate to go if we were not in a hurry!
The juicy dumplings were decent. Not spectacular, but definitely porky and juicy the way it should be. They didn’t blow me away, the skin might have been a little too thick…
Can’t wait to go back and try dishes!

In the past several months we’ve tried about 5 Shanghainese places. This one is on the top of the list of GOOD. Yes i agree with previous reviews that the food is a bit salty. I had their cold noodles with meat sauce and it was SALTY. But, and there is a big BUT, everything else was delicious. We had XLB and the soup was awesome, same with the meat. We had the deep friend gold buns as well. My gf tried the pan fried rice cakes with shredded pork everywhere. According to her, this place has the best pan fried rice cakes since our crusade for good Shanghainese food. They have specials when you spend over 20 bucks, you get free food so remember to spend more than 20.

Slow service, food was a bit salty but otherwise tasted really good. The dumplings were delicious (and by the looks of the other tables really popular). The staff does speak good enough English to get by.
They were doing a steady business of takeout which suggested to me that the food was really good.
They apologized for the mess ups and did what they could to make things better so I’m willing to give them another shot. I hope it was just a bad day.

2.5 Stars.
Funny thing is, I still want to come back and try some of the other food. But that’s a digression for an upcoming update. :)
This restaurant obviously had good reviews for it’s xlb, which I happen to love xlb and almost any dumpling for that matter. So having been awake from the wee hours the night before I decided to carb up on dinner here to try some out and cross my fingers I could discover another gem in Cambie Village.
We ordered pretty staple items: shangainese fried noodles, gai lan in broth, sweet and sour fish, and one order of XLB (which is surprisingly reasonable at 4.99 for 6).
Let’s start with the tea, we orderd jasmine. The server lady set the pot down and left. Unfortunately it wasn’t tea. It was just hot water. This was the first sign of things to come.
The fish came next. We had to stop ourselves from eating the entire dish because we wanted to wait for the rest of the food to arrive. And oh did we painfully wait.
Then came the gai lan in broth. It was cooked well (not that impressive because it would take a lot to screw up gai lan). It came with fried whole garlic cloves as garnish. Really yummy. But then came the broth. The broth was so salty! Again, a sign of things to come.
Then, after a long time I asked another server where the heck our noodles and xlb were. He went to the kitchen and a few minutes later produced a large plate of fried Shanghainese noodles. Cooked well, but SO salty again! grr…
By this time I am reaching full food satiation and I haven’t even eaten one dumpling yet. Turns out the lady didn’t even put the order in. She said sorry and ended up giving us the dumplings for free — the LEAST she could do really.
The xlb were actually quite tasty and not as salty as the rest of the food, though it could have used a little less salt anyway.
The table next to us ordered a lot of food that looked tasty so that’s why I actually want to go back and order some more food before I completely boycot this place altogether.
To be noted: we were not the only table asking why the heck our food was taking so long. And the restaurant was only half full.

Worst Shanghai I’ve ever had. The staff didn’t know the menu, didn’t speak English or Cantonese (only Mandarin), the kitchen was painfully slow, and they seemed to have forgotten about salt. Szechuan beef noodle soup should not taste like brown water with a little chili oil on top. The table next to us walked out.

I’m surprised this restaurant hasn’t had a review yet! It’s one of the gems of the new South Cambie strip. I headed in there for lunch one day while on my way to the airport and was greeted by a clean, sleek interior, white tablecloths, and large round tables. Service is polite and I since have come back to verify that they do speak English as well as Cantonese and Mandarin. The manager, Evan, is very friendly.
Red-​cooked beef noodle and xiao long bao (soup dumplings) were fantastic. In fact, their soup seems to be the specialty of the house. I apologize because I did return twice after my first visit last year but forgot what I ordered — I don’t remember having a poorly done dish however. That means something coming from a Chinese Canadian native to Vancouver.
I recommend trying this place out for lunch as the pricepoint is better for the same ambiance… but I wouldn’t hesitate (and have) brought my parents here and they were pleased as well.