Directly after eating at Joe’s Ginger, we walked over to 456 Shanghai after a tip from a food blogger who will remain anonymous lest he comment here telling me that I’m wrong for no longer trusting his food opinions after he gave us this suggestion…
Deviating from our normal Shanghainese order, I chose to start with what I thought would be light – cold sesame noodles. I actually thought this was a fake Chinese dish, but StB informed us that it was actually authentic – I confessed my first time having this dish was at Ollie’s and that got a big laugh. DLS said he’d never even heard of this dish… I need to bring him elsewhere to erase the memory of this failed dish. Plated sloppily, looking like instant ramen noodles slapped into a big bowl with some random sauce drizzled on top… these were not good. The noodles were overcooked, gummy, and just bad. I was pretty upset by this, and no one touched it after a few bites. We left most of this dish in the bowl.
And then the soup dumplings came out…
Markedly smaller than every place we’d visited, these were sad excuses for soup dumplings. Hardly any broth inside and just dry and unexciting, I was not too keen on these at all. We agreed: these were among the worst thusfar in the soup dumpling journey.
StB also ordered a tray of vegetarian dumplings here, as the ones at Joe’s Ginger had disappointed her. These were much better, plumper, and quite tasty as I tried one, but I didn’t photograph it. Haha.
Yvo says: While I didn’t like the soup dumplings or those horrible cold sesame noodles, I thought the vegetarian dumplings were very good, and StB confirmed that she’s visited numerous times in the past and found the food pretty tasty. We just didn’t order the best dishes at this establishment.
no rating
Eva says
Not even going to lie, I could not stop staring at the sauce streaks on the cold sesame noodles dish. Where to find good cold sesame noodles!?
Feisty Foodie says
I know, right?! I don’t expect beautiful plating at Chinatown restaurants but seriously?! I like this place in my neighborhood but I’d prefer chewier noodles… so I don’t really have a rec for you, sorry! If you find some, though, let me know!
hungry says
Is that just a sad form of dan dan noodles?
Feisty Foodie says
I’ve often thought something similar, because cold sesame noodles are occasionally laced with chili oil and slightly spicy, but no pork. It might be a cultural difference – like, a village-to-village variation?