Shanghai Asian Manor

All I had here are the dumplings, not a lot of choices, but what ever is there is very good. Especially there spicy wonton dumplings and shrimp dumplings. I wouldn’t recommend the vegetable dumplings tho, the stuffing is just broccoli and it’s not good.

I was craving for soup dumplings so it was either this place or my usual spot, Joe’s Shanghi. I decided to check this place out since I love venturing out. Sadly, I am NOT a fan of this place what-so-ever.This place did NOT hit up the spot what-​so-​ever.
On the bright side, the soup dumplings (6 pieces) came out pretty quick. The skin is super delicate, but a little too delicate for my liking. Overall ok, nothing to rave about.
Spicy wonton: not too spicy. Honestly I felt like it was more on the sweeter side than the spicy side.
Mock duck: cold dish. I probably enjoyed this dish the most. Super simple dish paired perfectly with the hot oil available at the table.
Tan Tan noodle (one of their specials): one word. BLAND.
Sorry but not sorry. This place isn’t up my alley.

Tourist trap. When I went in and asked for 2 seats I was quoted a 40 minute wait. We were starving so 5 minutes later my bf went in and asked again in Chinese, we were seated at the next available table.
Came for dinner this past Friday and walked away with the biggest stomach. We suspect it’s from the fried fish with sweet and sour sauce we ordered. If you do come, stick to the standard soup dumplings and scallion pancakes. Venturing off might leave you with a long night in the bathroom.

I stayed in China Town for a few days and definitely had my eye on trying some soup dumplings. On my way back to the hotel after walking miles, I decided to stop by and grab a bite.
Food:
I ordered an order of pork soup dumplings, and pork and veggies over rice.
Let me focus on the soup dumplings, since that’s why I visited. They were so good!
The only other time I’ve had soup dumplings was when I visited China, so I’m no expert. However, the flavor was spot on and everything was just perfect.
Sides Notes
Ambiance:
I went during an off time, but there were still a lot of people there eating. There’s plenty of seating, but I can definitely imagine this place packed during prime time dim sum hours.
Service:
In many Asian places like Hong Kong, you need to get your waiter/​waitresses attention for service. They will not come by and see how you are doing.
Knowing that is the custom, I still think the customer service was really good!
Overall:
I enjoyed eating here. I would highly recommend the soup dumplings!

Came here for lunch, ordered the Pork XLB and Crab XLB among other dishes. Supposedly this place is good for their XLBs. Decided to try it out. The taste of the XLB are ok and not super delicious. You can definitely find other places with no wait to get a decent XLB.
On a busy weekend this place seems to have a long wait and crowded with non asian diners.
This place definitely seems like a touristy place.

Shanghai Asian Manor
NY Manhattan Chinatown
7pm Monday 30^th May 2016
Four Stars
On this warm Holiday Monday, I got a bite to eat with Tiffany. The place was filled with a mix of Caucasians, Asians, and tourists. We had to wait a couple minutes because the front desk lady didn’t sardine us into every available seat. We sat a comfy booth and drank tea in large mugs. Tiffany ordered in Chinese and did a much better job than I would have done. The Zha Jian Mein was a big bowl of Thick Rice Noodles covered with piping hot spicy beef sauce. Be careful when mixing, it can splatter and burn your skin. The Szechuan Style Steamed Wonton were delicious. The wrapper was thin, the meat was tender, and sauce packed a lot of spice, garlic, and red pepper. I definitely choked on a pepper. The Xiao Long Bao were Steamed Pork Soup Dumplings. The wrapper was thick, saggy, and not very sturdy. The meat was tender and soup was decent. These particular dumplings were not my favorite. The
Steamed Chinese Vegetables with Garlic were good with a nice crunch and freshness. For $ 30, it was plenty of tasty Chinese food.

The soup dumplings deserve the five stars! I came here with a friend and we ordered 2 classic pork soup dumplings, 1 crab soup dumplings, and 1 spicy wonton. We finished everything =D
Both soup dumplings are really delicious, and it taste better when they are hot. So eat them as soon as they are placed on your table. Compare to the pork, the crab soup dumplings don’t have as much soup inside. BUT it’s still good. Be VERYYYY careful when you pick up your soup dumplings because you don’t want to break it and the soup will leak out.
The spicy wonton has now become my new favorite food to eat there. It’s not too spicy and it is a little sweet. So it is perfect combination with the right balance of spicy. At first, it does not taste spicy, but it will kick in later. If you want it even more spicy, just mix the wonton with more spicy oil that’s in the dish.

Great brunch spot for xialongbao and dim sum — especially on a Sunday morning (say 11:30-ish). By 12:15 the line is out the door, especially when Mott is closed for a street fair (as it was on our visit).
Friendly staff — awesome soup buns. The truffled ones ($ 12 for 6) are my favorite; earthy and fragrant, and they don’t skimp on the truffles either. The straight pork are excellent too, but I found the crab/​pork version a bit too «gamey» for me. In all cases, the dough is perfectly paper thin, with enough tensile strength to hold in the rich pork broth long enough to suck it out boiling hot, but tender enough to melt in your mouth.
The scallion pancake is fried to the bejeezus belt — like a potato chip — and it is bland except for a lingering, acrid after taste — but this was the only flaw.
Their limited selection of dim sum had enough variety to suit us – I especially like the shrimp offerings and the cold jelly fish. The straight steamed pork dumplings were doughy but the filling was well seasoned and there was plenty of it.
Hard to beat the pricing — four of us ate and drank our fill for under $ 60 (tip included).
Whenever I’m in Chinatown and eat at SAM or Shanghai Joe’s or other area Cantonese spots I wonder why I bother sourcing xialongbao anywhere else — especially in northern NJ.
Sometimes — convenience is the trade-​off for quality and authenticity.

If you want don’t want to wait in line or be in a crowded atmosphere like Joe’s Shanghai, definitely come here for soup dumplings!
It is much more spacious and you don’t feel rushed! It does get packed at times, but not at the point where they’re literally sweeping the plates out of your hands. Be sure to make a reservation!
We ordered 4 rounds of soup dumplings, fried tiny buns with pork and Shanghai lo mein with seafood. They were all really good! However, the winners were the soup dumplings and the lo mein! They have two varieties of soup dumplings: crab meat and pork and just pork. I really like the crab meat and pork ones!
The prices are pretty cheap. I was with a party of 6 and we each ended paying around $ 10 each. For the amount of food we got, that’s a great deal!
If you’re feeling hungry and do not want to spend too much, definitely come here! The food is always so good and you leave happy and content!

4.5 stars because it’s just that good and well priced. We came in at 11:30 on a Thursday and they were t too crowded yet but within 30 minutes the place was packed!
The problem with dim sum, if there must be a problem, is that you can’t try out too many items with just 2 people. But we really did try.
We ordered:
Hong Kong style hit and sour soup $ 7.50, it looked and tasted like regular hot and sour but there were more enoki mushrooms and some bay shrimp. Very tasty with a splash of sauce and a generous sprinkling of white pepper. ⁴⁄₅. BF hates mushrooms but still finished his bowl!
Juicy pork soup dumplings $ 5.75 for 8 pieces. These were the yummiest and juiciest dumplings I have ever tried! You must order these!
Chicken Siu Mai $ 3.50 for 4 huge pieces, these taste like the regular stuff. Good but nothing to write home about.
Wonton Szechuan style $ 5.75 for 8 pieces. ⁵⁄₅ these were moist and delish in a tasty sauce that wasn’t too oily. So good
I wish we could have ordered 10 more items but I seriously could put one more thing in my face.
The sign out front says B rating but don’t let that scare you. The restaurant was really clean as far as I could see. BF said the bathroom was lean too.
Service was on point, way better than I expected. They had some traditional dim sum items but the dumplings were really the star!

The taste of the xiao long bao stayed the same, but the size of it just got a lot smaller. The truffle xiao long bao tasted mediocre. You can smell the truffle when you bite into it, but you can’t really taste it at all. I would still prefer to original xiao long bao. The pan fried buns tasted pretty good too.

I was a tad disappointed this time around. The Shanghai dumplings tasted different. Couldn’t put my finger on it, but definitely not as good as last time. The enoki dish that was super yummy, but really salty was really bland this time. They definitely forgot the key ingredient before serving it. I also tried the shrimp and pork lo mein, which was really tasty and flavorful. I ate the entire dish!
Maybe they just had an off day?

Not a bad place to go check out.
The soup dumplings are tasty and delicate the way they should be and very flavorful. We also had some noodles, Mapo tofu and a spicy chicken dish. All the non soup dumpling food was good to very good — the noodles were tastier than i expected. Servings were moderately sized, good for 3 to 4 people per dish — but not enough for more.
So the perfect amount of people is 4 and each person should order 1 family style dish — and 1 or 2 sets of soup dumplings. That would feed a hungry group.

This place got really busy around 8 pm on a Thursday. Food was good and affordable. Staff was also really friendly and accommodating. I actually really enjoyed the soup dumplings and I’m usually really picky about them. Approveee

Probably my favorite shanghai cuisine spot. There’s so much competition for Shanghai cuisine specifically, but this place is go-​to! It’s a nice atmosphere. Plenty of seating. Staff is very attentive. I love that they have so many pictures of their food around the restaurant and on the menu.
Food was really great. Nothing fancy but still really good. The vegetable spring rolls omfg probably the best I ever had!

Food: ⁵⁄₅. I had the baby shrimp fried rice. It was yummy and I asked them to make it spicy (great idea because it still came out NOT TOO SPICY) very flavorful. And LOTS OF SHRIMP.
Atmosphere: ⁴⁄₅. It was cold inside, they even stocked up while we were all inside eating. They left the door open for about 3 minutes. HOWEVER, they seated us quick, brought out food quick, and it’s not very noisy inside.
Return chance: ⁴⁄₅. If I’m in the neighborhood I will definitely come here. However, I love trying new things. BUT I believe you should come and try here yourself. It’s yummy.

I tried Shanghai Asian Manor as well as Joe’s Shanghai during my visit to New York. I really wanted to compare the xiao long bao (soup dumplings) at both locations.
Having tried both within a couple days, I think the xiao long bao at Shanghai Asian Manor tastes better. The soup inside the dumpling is smoother and thinner. It tasted too thick at the other place. The wrapper at both locations was very thick. And the size of the dumplings were about the same.
The dumplings (at both places) are okay, but not amazing. The food is average. My favorite place for xiao long bao is actually Din Tai Fung in Taipei. Go there if you ever have a chance.

The food here is truly Shanghai-​nese style. For those who are not familiar is Shanghai cuisine, it tends to be sweeter. We ordered the spicy wontons, black vinegar fish, soup dumplings, and rice cakes.
My favorite was the Spicy Wontons, they have a heat to them but not unbearable. I will be stopping by again to get more. I enjoyed their soup dumplings but wish the skin was a little thinner. The fish was delicious, I really like the taste of vinegar and thought this was beautifully done.
My least favorite were the rice cakes. It was just a little too sweet for me. Growing up my mom use to make a salty flavor version and must have brainwashed me into thinking rice cakes are only meant to be served salty. The rice cakes being a little sweet did not stop my from finishing them.
The staff are nice and use to westerner so their service skills were significantly above average for a Chinatown establishment. Can not wait to make a return for those wontons.

Shanghai Asian Manor was abit underwhelming for me. I had a feeling I might be let down by how popular the place has become among tourists in Chinatown, and the food felt more like it catered to the American palate rather than a more traditional taste. I should have gone with my gut, but I didn’t know enough about Chinatown to really get a good feel, and we didn’t have time to go to Flushing.
I’ll start off by saying the Xiao Long Bao is very good here, and they bring them out pretty quickly, since so many people were ordering them. I was also a big fan of the scallion pancakes.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the double sauteed pork with hot sauce that I ordered. One, the sauce it was coated in wasn’t very hot and looked and tasted more like teriyaki, and two, there wasn’t a whole lot of it. It was mostly vegetables all on the bottom. I end up switching dishes with my sister who got the pan fried noodles, and those were really good! I will say my sister liked my pork more than I did.
The service here is decent, and the servers are kind of all over the place. I hear this place gets busy, but we were able to get three of us in to a table without a wait on a early Tuesday afternoon. The place doesn’t have much store front signage, so keep a good eye out. If I’m going back to Chinatown again, I’d probably pass on this place and try to find some more authentic dishes. If that doesn’t matter to you, then you’ll enjoy this spot more than I!

Seemingly very popular spot. We had to share a table. The gigantic photos of appetizing food will definitely cause you to over-​order. Anyways.
I’ve definitely had better soup dumplings elsewhere but the ones here are decent. The skin is super delicate yet encompasses enough scalding broth and a juicy pork filling to pack a tasty, slurpy bite. $ 5.25 will get you 6.
I didn’t enjoy the scallion pancakes that everyone raves about. They were way crisp and so dry. Bad batch? Fried too long? Some pieces had the consistency of a kettle chip. No bueno.
I had the jajiang mein as my entrée. The noodles were nice and thick. There was enough meat sauce to drench the whole bowl but the sauce itself was a tad too watery. Luckily, the flavor made up for it.
Would come back.