Nan Shian Dumpling House

Location: 38-12 Prince St., Flushing, NY 11354
Cuisine: Chinese
Phone: (718) 321-3838
Prices: about $9/person
Credit Cards: Cash only

Food: 7
Service: 7
Value: 6
Environment: 3

Frequency: Unique

I did the usual lunch thing with my parents on my day off and covered a new restaurant today. Auntie Kim mentioned Nan Shian Dumpling House before and my Mom ate there a couple of times. This was my first time to compare it to Joe's Shanghai.

I'll get right to the specialty from the start... the Xiao Long Bao (soup dumpling). It was much more expensive at Nan Shian. The crab was $6.25 for 6 dumplings and the pork $5.25 for 6. I don't remember the price at Joe's, but it was definitely under $5 for 8 dumplings. I didn't taste anything special with the premium price. They were also slightly smaller than their competition. So Joe's Shanghai wins by a longshot. The other dishes were better at Nan Shian though. We had pork chop noodle soup and Shanghai pan fried noodles. Aside from the taste, the portions were pretty small and lacked contents. The noodle soup had 2 pieces or pork chop. The fried noodles was supposed to have strips of meat in it, but I found very little. Another noteworthy thing about the food is that not all of the appetizers are available every day... only what you see in the cart they have up front.

The service was OK... no complaints. The value was just OK because they lost to Joe's Shanghai significantly on prices. If Joe's Shanghai is THE soup dumpling restaurant, one should expect places that haven't been around as long to have lower prices.

The restaurant space was clean and well maintained, but was extremely cramped. There was no elbow room and tables have to be shared. There was also no heat, which felt pretty uncomfortable at first, but luckily we had a hot soup in our order.

The overall menu was good, but I can't see a reason to come to Nan Shian Dumpling House if the driving force is a craving for soup dumplings. I'll just head to Joe's every time!