Joe's Shanghai - Chinatown

9 Pell St Ste 1 (Cross Street: Bowery) New York, NY 10013-5134 (212) 233-8888
Description: Bustling Chinese restaurant serving a mixture of crowd pleasing Shanghainese fare.
Burdie Approved Rating:
Pros: communal seating, fast service, cheap
Cons: communal seating, overcrowded



















This wasn't our first time at Joe's Shanghai but for some reason the pork soup dumplings were exceptional last night. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I managed to eat them without any hot liquid explosions on my face and walked away with a burn-free tongue. Joe's Shanghai was crowded with tourists as usual but getting a seat wasn't too bad - we waited around 25 minutes before finally getting seated with a mother/daughter who were in the middle of a very "Days of Our Lives" dialogue. We quickly placed an order for the famous Pork Soup Dumplings, String Beans (Szechuan style) and Sliced Pork with Scallions. Eating soup dumplings is an art form and after my performance last night, I think it's safe to say that I've perfected it. Hold the soup spoon with your left hand, chopsticks on the right - carefully pick up the dumpling (without piercing the dough) and place it on top of your soup spoon. Carefully bite the dumpling piercing the top with a 5cm - 1/2" incisition. This opening will serve two purposes: 1) lets the steam out so you don't end up burning yourself when you go for the final bite and 2) is also the exit spout for the soup inside. If you're a chopstick novice the next steps can be tricky ... spill out some of the soup out of the dumpling by gently tilting the dumpling with your chopsticks (the soup will drain out onto your soup spoon). Enjoy the soup and repeat this process until most of the soup is out of the dumpling. I like to pour a little bit of the mysterious soy sauce into the dumpling before taking the big bite.

The string beans here are the best! There's nothing better than fried string beans lightly dusted with rock salt. I tried making this at home once but I can never get myself to use a gallon of oil so it never ends up as good. The pork dish was the weakest of the three but still good - probably won't order it again. The check came out to about $28, not bad for two people, 3 dishes and a bottomless pot of black tea!
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If you've never tried the famous soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai and feel that a panic attack laden stroll through Chinatown might put a slight dampener on your weekend, you can replicate the experience by doing the following.

1. Cram 7 strangers - many who have personality disorders - around your kitchen table.
2. Fill a super soaker ballistic nork korean neutralizer water pistol with a carefully mixed cocktail of napalm and hot sauce.
3. Periodically squirt said cocktail into open mouth, pausing only to scrape dead skin cells off your badly mangled tongue and jam kebab skewers into your ear drums to drown out the conversation around you.

Don't get me wrong, the soup dumplings (with pork) are very good - but eating them requires levels of skill and dexterity that pipecleaner limbed softies like myself can only ever dream about.

For those of you who don't like dinner to be booby trapped, there are slightly safer options on the extensive menu. The string beans were salty, crispy, and generally had very few characteristics OF a string bean - which was a huge positive in my book.

The main dish of sliced pork with scallions was somewhat disappointing, with most of the taste unfortunately left behind in the pan - but after having destroyed 78 per cent of my taste buds with the dynamite dumplings, it's possible my sensitivities were below par.

But at 28 bucks for two people, the value really can't be beat - and despite the constant influx of wide eyed tourists harassing the slightly disinterested staff members, if you like Chinese food this really isn't a bad option.

Point to note: If you're looking for a cosy table for two, this probably isn't the place to saunter down to on a Saturday night. Most of the circular tables sit up to five people, so unless there are five people in your group you'll be lumped together with whoever fate decides is worthy of your company. Last night we had the pleasure of a melodramatic, spoilt daughter who was perhaps one of the greatest adverts for forced sterilization and an out-of-town couple that consisted of a very nice and enthusiastic wife, and a husband who had all the good cheer of a DMV employee with Autism. Happy days!