Joe Shanghai

Joe Shanghai is THE soup-dumpling place in Chinatown, and in my post on Shanghai Kitchen I referenced it, so now for a comparison:

My buddy Steph was visiting for the weekend, and the only means I had of entertaining her was through food. Having been upstate for the past year (as in upstate New York and NOT "Upstate" in prison), she mentioned that one of the things she's missed the most was good soup-dumplings. We went around noon on Sunday and I was worried that there would be a long line due to the weekend lunch crowd, but we got lucky and were able to be seated immediately. We ordered two sets of the pork and crab dumplings - which I personally find to be more flavorful than the plain pork ones.

As you can see, the wraps on the dumplings at Joe Shanghai are much thinner than the ones used at Shanghai Kitchen. In fact, they're thin enough that you can see the soup inside - plenty of yummy soup that the crab gives a nice, rich flavor. There was one casualty as Step was transferring it to her plate, but in all we did pretty well: there are 8 dumplings per order, and out of the 16 we received, we only popped one, and one was already leaking when the dish arrived at our table.

For dessert I introduced Steph to the "fried tiny buns," which are basically deep fried little balls of dough that can be dipped into a side of sweetened condensed milk. They're wonderfully crispy on the outside, and light and fluffy on the inside - one of my favorite things on their menu. 

This was all followed up with a second dessert: black sesame and almond cookie ice cream from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for Steph, and taro bubble tea from Ten Ren for me. In all, today was a very good food day. As for tomorrow: I think I might need to do some running... maybe several laps around the island to burn off all these calories...

Overall rating: 8.5/10

Joe's Shanghai
9 Pell Street
New York, NY 10013