Shanghai Stories 1938

Not a book of memoirs from a mainland northerner nor the next Jackie Chan action thriller (although it does sound like a Wong Kar Wai movie) but the name of a Shanghai themed yum cha restaurant just opened in Chatswood's new community precinct called The Concourse!

Serendipitously, I was on an errand in Chatswood and walked past the huge complex that is the Concourse when I spotted this intriguingly named restaurant and decided straight away that it was time to eat even though it was only 11am, aahh call it brunch!

Everyone has nice dumplings!

So say the people at

a quaint restaurant attached to the Commonwealth Pub in Surry Hills. It's the sort of place you envisage finding in a backstreet off the main road in Shanghai. Walking into this place was like getting on a plane and landing in an exotic location without the body-draining experience of air travel.

The ceiling was hung with bird cages of all shapes and sizes doubling as lanterns and yes, that is a bicycle!

An eclectic mix of bench seating and cowhide covered stools (which would have been at home in a Texan bar) along with row upon row of narrow picnic-style tables formed the furnishings; not unlike a pop-up restaurant which vanishes without a trace in the morning; except that the buzz and hum generated by the volume of patrons would seem to indicate that this place is not closing down any time soon!