A big lunch at Shanghai Village with everyone!

Although my sister lives in HK, she doesn't get enough Shanghainese food as you would expect, since her hubby isn't really a fan. Knowing this, I arranged for a Shanghainese dim sum lunch on her first weekend here in Vancouver.

The above is a dish that I've had here once before...Marbled Preserved Egg, a mixture of a century egg and a duck egg. It's gelatinous, salty, and doesn't taste egg at all. It doesn't taste like century egg, and certainly has a more solid texture than traditional century egg. And because they only use the yolk from the duck egg, it's not as salty as you would expect, because the saltiness from duck eggs actually come from the egg white. Even if you don't think you like either of the two eggs, you should try this dish, because truly, the sum is greater that its parts.

Instead of a photo of a container of XLB with one missing (which I've been tempted to do both at Lin's and Ning Tu), I decided to take a picture of ONLY one XLB. I have to admit that it's way better than Lin's and probably not as good as Ning Tu's. But there is one thing that makes it just a bit better than Ning Tu's...it's FREE when your food order is over $20 (excluding the price of the XLBs, of course). And this deal is valid at both lunch AND dinner!

The next plate to come were Rice Cakes...not the kind you get from Quakers...oh, no, SO much better. It's a delicious stirfry of perfectly ergonomically correct noodles (perfect for chopsticks), cabbage and meat. I like to eat it one at a time, the same way I eat penne, rotini, ravioli, and in extreme cases...even spaghetti.

Because we had a little boy join us for lunch, one who hates all things green, we ordered the Noodles with Preserved Veggies and Minced Meat in soup, but with all the veggies on the side. If you've ordered this dish before, the first thing you'll notice is the abundance of "on the side" goodness. Perhaps they gave us more because the usual amount of veggies and meat they would have given us normally would look so dismal...but whatever the reason, it was awesome! I think I'm going to order all my noodle soups this way from now on!

My mom loves sticky rice, and this place had a dumpling filled with sticky rice. The beauty of this dumpling? It wasn't wrapped in regular dumpling skin...it was presented in an open envelope of thin layer of bread-like skin. And then steamed to perfection. It's filling, so best share with a loved one so that you can eat the rest of the dishes still to come!

A staple of Shanghainese dimsum is the sticky rice. It's a sushi-like roll, with sticky rice on the outside, and deep fried dough (chinese donut) with a bit of preserved veggies and pork floss on the inside. It doesn't sound like much, but it's SO much more!

My sister was craving dumplings...the kind you would get at a Japanese place...perfectly panfried. It was filled with meats and then wrapped with a thin wrapper. When you stuff it up right, and fry it up, the first bite you take is reminscent of XLBs....when it's done right, it is juicy and meaty. That's what this was.

The last dish we got were their gigantic chive dumpling...instead of 6 little dumplings filled with chives, we received one gigantic chive-filled dumpling...sliced into quarters. It is one of my mom's favourite dishes, and now, I know why. It's chock-full of chives, and slightly wet...fragrant and hot...it's almost healthy even though you know it's been fried.
This place is one f my favourite places for Shanghainese dimsum if you're on the west side. Since I'm on the east side more, I usually go to Ning Tu. But when I do venture away from my domain, I'd suggest this for sure.