Dumpling Inn Shanghai Saloon

I have had my eye on this place for the last year, but never got a chance to try it until recently. I was coming in with high hopes, but as soon as I received the food, I came back to reality. The atmosphere is beautiful and would be a cool place for drinks and the servers are all very nice, but the food is just not worth it. I even got the lunch special pricing and felt the food lacked in quality. I tried the duck noodle soup and the Xiao long Bao. The braised duck noodle soup had a great flavor with a tasty duck broth and the noodles were a nice texture, but the duck was soooo overcooked, yet still put outside the soup, so I don't understand why it was like that. It was wet, chewy, tough and lacked any flavor, yet that was the main part of the dish. The Xiao long Bao (while seemingly hand made), also lacked flavor as the meat inside was so tiny compared to the air and there was no soup that would spill out of them. They also were so sticky that if you pulled it up, it would tear immediately so even if there was some juice in it, it would have leaked out. Come here for drinks and atmosphere but not for their food (lots more authentic and tasty restaurants around it to try instead).

If you like dumplings then this is the place to go. Try their house special. Family run and the owner is nice and friendly.

A must! Best dumplings and orange chicken. Try the eggplant with pork. You won't be disappointed!

Good food, big family sized portions. Not chinese take out type of food.

5 star for sure but the Calamari dish was horrible. The flour based batter tasted only like flour. The Calamari was chewy. Other than that Shanghai Saloon always delivers with food, efficiency and ambiance. The mood.was rushed when we got there but it was definitely controlled chaos. There is never a long wait. Servers are friendly and helpful. We got chopsticks but most needed forks. When we asked we got them ASAP. Dumplings are still on point even with all the competition around them. Convoy St is quickly becoming San Diego's unofficial Asian Town.