Shanghai Tan Pan-Fried Bun 上海滩生煎包 (Thomson)

As it's my second time to try it out for pan fried bun on ($7.80) another store. I decided to order with prawn and pork combination on the platter. I think pork really taste normal but prawn taste much better than pork tbh.

come with Special Scallion Oil Noodles, Drink, Pan Fried Bun. ($9.80) Decided to try same stuff previously. It's so good and delicious for the pan fried bun and inside filling. I also got burn my tongue due to hot soup broth filled inside pan fried bun.

These are crispy pan-fried dumplings and are soupy on the inside. Very satisfying to eat even when I had it as a takeaway. The pork dumplings are juicier and the pork & prawn dumplings are tender and fresh, but less soupy within.

For dine-in experience, the eatery is super warm. The AC doesn't really work and there are spotlights everywhere.

Initially when I saw all the bad reviews about this place in Google and all the good reviews in Xiao Hong Shu, I thought this must be a case of non Chinese nationals disliking authentic Shanghainese flavours. So I decided to give it a try. I was wrong.

First there was the long wait, which is expected for a new restaurant offering Shanghainese food. We were a group of 3 and when it was our turn, we were seated at a table meant for two only. Just make do, we were told. If and when a table frees up, the waiter promised to shift us. Never did, even after more than one table frees up.

Food wise, we ordered the Sheng Jian Bao, Beef Guo Tie, Scallion oil Noodles, Chilli Oil Dumplings, Crab meat dumpling soup and Drunken Chicken. The dumplings, Sheng Jian Bao all tasted sweet without the umami of meat juice coming from steamed fresh meat. Someone in the kitchen took the idea of adding a little sugar, to elevate the taste of the dumpling filling, too far. The scallion oil noodles had too little scallion taste as the noodles was a disproportionately large serving. Only the beef potstickers and drunken chicken impressed, the former because it is a rarity and the latter because it tasted genuinely good. And I should know because I lived in Shanghai for almost 20 years.

Service was polite but inadequate. We were left sitting there to twiddle our thumbs for 10 mins without menu nor means to order using their QR code.

Not coming back anytime soon.

Went past this pretty new Chinese establishment named Shanghai Tan Pan-Fried Bun at Novena located within Goldhill Shopping Centre some time back when it was still undergoing renovation works — thought the decor seemed pretty promising and found ourselves making a visit when we found out that they have since opened for business. For those who are not too familiar with the area, Shanghai Tan Pan-Fried Bun is situated in the building beside United Square, where one would also be able to find an outlet of Udder’s Ice Cream and Craftsmen Specialty Coffee there as well — Shanghai Tan Pan-Fried Bun is located just beside Rocovo Restaurant, which houses Chye Kee Goldhill Chicken Rice Restaurant. While the main focus here based on their namesake is their pan-fried buns, Shanghai Tan Pan-Fried Bun serves up quite a decent spread — the menu being split into several categories such as Shanghai Appetisers, Shanghai Wanton, Shanghai Stir-Fried Rice, Shanghai Soup, Shanghai Dim Sum, Shanghai Noodles, Shanghai Fried Strings and Shanghai Desserts. Variety of beverages can be said to be pretty limited here, which includes Soy Milk, Homemade Barley Water, and fresh juices.

Since the name of the establishment suggests that they specialise in pan-fried buns, we went for the Shanghai Tan Pan-Fried Bun Platter — the platter consisting of four pan-fried buns in total with two pieces of their Signature “Popping Juice” Pan Fried Bun and Prawn Pan Fried Bun each. Between the two, we felt that the Signature “Popping Juice” Pan Fried Bun fared slightly better than the Prawn Pan Fried Bun. The latter has included prawn with the meat filling; no doubt the prawns do seem to be pretty fresh and naturally sweet with a slight savouriness from the meat and the broth within the bun, though we felt that the side of the bun which they had pan-fried was actually pretty dense and difficult to chew through despite being crusty. In retrospect, the Signature “Popping Juice” Pan Fried Bun was slightly better when it came to the broth which was all savoury and flavourful — almost akin to having a good Xiao Long Bao with ample meat filling that was sufficiently moist and bouncy. That being said, one of the pieces we had was overdone on the pan-fried side which saw it being pretty charred and carried a slight bitterness from being burnt.

Always intrigued by establishments that places an emphasis on pan-fried buns such as the likes of Dingtele, No Signboard Sheng Jian and the now-defunct Mr. Shengjian — it always brings a slightly different take of Chinese cuisine to the F&B scene where most would likely have a focus on Mala and Chuan Chuan instead. That being said, we found our experience at Shanghai Tan Pan-Fried Bun a little lacking — some of the service staff isn’t exactly very welcoming when they were serving food on the table, while the food could do with some refining; we wouldn’t exactly recommend the Fried Rice with Pork Chop that we also had for how bland it was. Still, for an eatery that doesn’t have quite a presence on the more mainstream social media platforms, it is pretty impressive to see how they are not only operating at full capacity, but also seeing a waiting list of more than 10 groups during lunch service on a weekend — whether if it is because of it being newly-opened, or if their other items are more impressive; only time will tell …