On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Mr. "E" and I decided to try the new Yu garden recommended by a friend in Richmond hill. When we got here, we found out that it is a branch from a famous shanghainese dumpling place that operated since 1559 in Shanghai.
The menu is famous for the 灌湯包, pretty much consume steamed inside a huge dumpling which you drink through a straw. Obviously we had to try both the sharks fin and crab roe soup dumpling.
As you can see from the menu, they have some pretty gourmate xiao long bao for tasting purposes.
To start we ordered 馬蘭頭 a classic minced vegetable (Indian aster) with tofu cold dish. It was quite tasty and refreshing for a hot summer day.
Then came the soup dumplings. Maybe because of their soft opening, the crab roe soup dumpling was flavourless.
As for the shark fin soup dumpling, it was a tad better with the chicken stock which was as expected. I had to season with ample amount of vinegar and salt. But I have to say it was quite bland, and lacking the umami flavour we were hoping for to find.
We can not go to a shanghainese restaurant and not get the classic 小龍包, xiao long bao. Much better than the massive soup dumplings as it is more flavourful.
Mr. E got one of his favourite 東波肉, braised pork belly. The flavour is solid, but the sauce needs further reduction and the pork needs to soak in the sauce more to absorb the essense of the sweetness and saltiness. It was quite good with the rice.
As for the last dish, we finished with was a classic shanghainese scallion noodles with dried shrimp. Once again, we were hoping for more but the flavours were bland. You can say they were subtle. The noodles wasn't bad though.
We had really high hopes for the restaurant after reading the restaurants biography, and how it introduced that both Bill Clinton and the Queen ate at the Shanghai branch. Overall, the food needs work. The kitchen needs time to settle in as their signature soup dumpling really needs major improvements.
Service: 3/5
Quality: 3/5
Price: $$
