Muodu Shanghai Cuisine

This restaurant opened six months ago and it was only a few days ago that 3 of us finally got the time to try it out. The Black Olive used to occupy the current place in a strip mall in Lomita. They did a great job with the decor; bright orange walls with sleek modern chairs.

One of their signature dishes is the Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings) so we definitely had to have that. We also ordered Pork Shumai and Shrimp Fried Rice. The shumai arrived first. We all looked at each other since we've never seen shumai looking so different. I thought they gave us the wrong order. Sandi's expression looked like she just saw baby aliens. Sue just had a blank stare. Upon close examination, we came to the conclusion that it was topped with dark colored rice. We all took one and I kept waiting for the pork. It was all rice and the pork was chopped so finely that it became lost in the rice. I later asked our server about the shumai and she informed us that this was Shumai Shanghai style. None of us cared for it so there was no fight over the single one left.

The Xiao Long Bao was much better. We thought the dough was lighter than Din Tai Fung and there was more soup but it lacked the flavor. Maybe it was also due to the fact that they didn't have vinegar which is so good with the soy sauce. This brings me up to the fact that they had Sriracha sauce in each table. Ours was the only one with a full bottle. All the other tables had bottles that were almost empty, as well as the salt and pepper. Sandi noticed that the condiment containers were not clean.

The Shrimp Fried Rice was delicious. We all enjoyed that. Service was a bit slow. Sue had to get up to request our bill. There were only 2 other parties of two at the time.

Muodu Shanghai Cuisine is located at 2418 Lomita Blvd. Suite A in Lomita, California.