Sammi & Soupe Dumpling

As xiao long bao as it gets. Good soup dumplings and even the hot and sour soup was good. The wait for the dumplings take quite a while (15 – 20 mins) because they make it as you order. Worth it! No credit, cash or debit only.

We were walking down Rue St. Catherine and trying to figure out what to eat. We ended up walking quite far from St. Catherine and Peel because we were just wandering around and ended up seeing a big block of Asian restaurants including Chinese, Japanese and Korean food.
We saw a quite few soup dumping places but decided on this one because of the overall reviews plus the price ($ 7.99 to $ 8.99 for 10 dumplings). This is a great price because usually the soup dumplings are $ 5.99 for 6. We had two orders of soup dumplings, I believe one was beef and the other was chicken. Since I don’t eat meat that often anymore, I may not be the best connoisseur for this, but my DC loved both of them as they were full of juice and flavour but not too salty. There was a lot of natural meat flavour and the wrapping wasn’t too starchy.
We also ordered the wonton soup which was great. The great thing about this place is that it’s roomy, they have an open kitchen and the service is okay.
Overall, pretty decent place for Chinese dumplings, however not too many vegetarian options.

I am a fan of the place. I think it’s a great place to have decent soup dumpling at a reasonable price.
I personally like the pork dumplings (All of them) steam and the beef curry (Fried one). The service is quick but something they mess up specially when it’s busy. So try to go before busy hours, you will get a much better service.
The place only takes cash and debit. Also I do not recommend the wonton soup as entrée it’s below average.

We ordered the hot and sour cucumber, spicy tofu, classic xiao long bao, pork and crab xiao long bao, and the beef curry fried dumplings. All the food was very tasty. The skin on the dumplings was not too thick, which is hard to find, and the soupy goodness inside the dumpling was delicious. The only drawback was the non existent service. We had to ask for dumpling sauce that was on all the other tables, and never got a refill of water or our other beverages. So go for the food, but don’t expect good service.

Another great dumpling place in the city. Steamed dumplings, I love that and it really how it should be done. They serve soup dumplings which can be harder to eat and are not my favourite type in dumplings but it doesn’t change the fact they do a great job and a good price. I would go back again and again because there is a lot of choice.

I am a very big fan of dumplings, I discovered this place through a friend. It is one of those restaurant that you won’t probably go to unless you lived in the neighborhood. Looks like any random Chinese restaurant but I was very impressed by the quality of their dumplings. There were made fresh and had enough soup/​filling in them. We ordered the cucumber salad and tofu and they were both delicious. If you are looking for a low key, cheap dinner, this is a great place

A casual dumpling shop place, do not come here expecting excellent service or anything fancily presented. The menu is simple — a few starters and a moderate variety of xiaolongbao and potsticker dumplings. There is good variety for all diets-​various meat and veggie options are available. Having been looking for more Chinese food in Montréal, I was not disappointed.
The wait for food to arrive after order was a by longer than expected, but may be due to a busy night in the shop in general. Have patience as there’s limited staff in the small shop.
The xiaolongbao comes in sets of 10 and are more northerner sized-​about 2in in diameter. Coming from Toronto where super-​southern-​style (read: Guangdong) ones are popular, these felt much larger and the skin was thicker. We ordered the classic pork and the chicken and mushroom — the classic was an expected good flavour and the chicken and mushroom was a good unconventional option.
The potsticker dumplings come in sets of 15 and are, oppositely, smaller than I expected. They’re folded with the ends open to allow the oil to leak out making the skin crispier. We ordered the pork and bok choy and the beef curry. The pork and bok choy was again, a classic combination with a flavour that met expectation. The beef curry was a surprising twist that I thoroughly enjoyed — not too spicy but had a curry kick.

The best part about the meal was how cheap it was.
I was pretty disappointed that they were out of both their vegetarian dumpling fillings (it was about 7pm on a Tuesday night). I ended up ordering a large hot&sour soup and enviously glaring at my friend’s dumplings. The soup was great but nothing to call home about. I also tried out the spicy bean curd which was difficult to eat and lacking in excitement.
The service was best described as hostile. What struck me was how slow they were to clear up our dishes. It was also cash-​only that night so I wouldn’t go in expecting to pay with card.

Very tasty and juicy chicken and mushroom xiao long bao. Sesame soy noodles were also good.

Very quick service and extremely cheap!!! Only $ 7 for 10 dumplings!!! And they are huge dumplings!
They are tasty if you haven’t ate xiao long bao before. And especially delicious if you don’t compare with, say, real ones.
They are very bland, both the soup and the meat are almost tasteless. The dumping dough is very thick like bao’s. The soup has the authentic flavour, perhaps 10% and 90% water.
The lamb is quite alright!
The restaurant is small and very busy. The floors are quite dirty. Tables are close together. Very good service! For the price, definitely valuable.
However for this quality, I would rather make them at home.

This place seems to be doing a good job of pumping up social media lately so I thought I would give them a try. The only thing I can recommend is… EVERYTHING ON THEIR MENU!!!
soup dumplings are pretty trendy right now and I have tried a few and these ones are better than the others I have tried, the broth is out of this world. What takes a back seat to the taste is the amount of fun they are to eat.
The neatest part is watching through the glass window the ladies making the dumplings, they look like those people that can solve a Rubik’s cube super fast, I couldn’t help but laugh at how crazy fast their fingers are moving.
And for 2 people the bill was only $ 20! No visa though

4 étoiles, 1 mot: DUMPLING.
Wow. Définitivement, leurs Xiao long bao (petite soupe-​dumpling) valent le détour. Ils sont littéralement comme on les imagine: plus tendres et juteux que les dumplings ‘pliés’ réguliers.
Également, lors de notre passage, nous avons essayé la soupe aigre-​douce et dumpling. Nous n’avons pas été déçus !
Il né faut vraiment pas se fier à l’allure du commerce: petite table en bois, chaise dur, pas de décorations. L’endroit est toujours plein, même un lundi soir.
Le service est horrible et pratiquement unilingue (malgré quelque bribres d’anglais). Mais bon, qui a jamais été dans un restaurant asiatique pour un service 5 étoiles?
On y retourne

This place is great for a quick and easy lunch with friends. Beware if you’re bringing people who don’t know how to use chopsticks, it can be tricky since there are no other utensils besides a spoon. We brought my boyfriend’s parents, and it was hilarious to see my father in-​law use chopsticks! The dumplings are freshly made and well priced. I’ve been three different times and I’ll definitely be back.

I go once a week…
I used to think this place was only so so, but now I love it. I’ve had all the different kinds of dumplings. My favorite is the shrimp pork and scallops.
The cucumber salad is amazing, so good, try it, it looks like nothing but it’s actually so well made. This place is so cheap too, the service could be slow when they are busy but the quality of the food makes up for it. I love this place and it’s a pretty decent soup dumpling, not the best but definitely hits the spot everytime.
:)

Sammi is owned by the folks at Qing Hua, but (according to the staff) specializing in southern Chinese, Shanghai-​style soup-​filled dumplings, xiao long bao, versus the northern-​style dumplings served at Qing Hua. The beef and onion and the pork and leek were delicious. The service was friendly, helpful, super quick and kind. They have a couple basic beers and some inexpensive salads on the menu, but we didn’t try any. We had the dumpling craving, and we ate all the dumplings, and it was glorious.
If you haven’t eaten xiao long bao before let me save you the emphatic mess that I was the first time: let the soup pour out of the dumpling into the big spoon they give you. Rather than let it explode all over you. Pro tip.

Go simple, get the traditional porc xiaolongbao. You’ll be more than satisfied with the flavour-​packed soup-​filled dumplings served in steaming baskets. Use the spoon, sip the soup, careful it’s hot. The broth is so tasty by itself that I enjoyed it plain without the soy and vinegar. Real food at this price? That’s rare.
The lamb and green onion fried dumplings, though not as novel, were quite good as well. Don’t ask for tea. It’s not free and not good (lol).
Very quiet, with tables and banquettes for groups. Service was quick on an early Saturday evening. Cash only or debit over $ 10. On a sidenote, the receipt says «Qing Hua Dumpling» with three addresses, Sammi and the other two Qing Hua must be related?

10 xiao long bao (soup dumplings) for only 6.99 $?!
Brief summary of what I took:
I’ve been here twice now in under 24h, and I must say, the classic pork soup dumplings are reaaal tasty. So far, I’ve tried:
Soup dumplings: classic pork (4.5÷5), pork and leek (³⁄₅), chicken and mushroom (3.5÷5)
Fried dumplings: lamb and green onions (⁴⁄₅).
Shanghai Fried Buns (³⁄₅)
Tea: charging 2 $ wtf
The classic pork turns out to be the best. I thought the pork and leek might be even better, which is why I returned a second time, ordering classic pork and ‘pork and leek’ for a side to side comparison. The pork and leek dumplings is a loony more expensive, but tastes a tad worse –_​–
The classic pork dumplings contained such nice tasting broth, I’m starting to think it’s MSG overload because the broth seems so clear and simple I can’t comprehend its source of flavour and, pardon my modesty, because I’ve never made any broth close to this gud :’)
Anyway, it’s a good place for 2^nd-​3^rd time dates, because it can get… inelegant. There is quite a protocol to follow in order to get the dumpling from the basket to your mouth in a secure manner. This aforementioned flowchart is printed and located somewhere on the table. I strongly suggest first timers to follow it by the letter.

This 5 star review is based on the soup dumplings only. If like me, you’ve been desperately searching for the elusive xiao long bao and been fooled by places like qing hua that falsely advertise soup dumplings, go to Sammi & Soupe! They are the best I’ve found in Montréal — fresh, made to order, and you have the option of choosing different meats and stuffings. I ordered the pork/​coriander and chicken/​mushroom. Both were so soupy and delicious. I also ordered the wonton soup and spicy pickled cucumber which were just so-​so. There were a couple cucumber pieces that were old and mushy and inedible — this seemed to be a problem for other reviewers as well.
2 stars for the place itself as it was a bit dingy which is nothing new when it comes to restaurants like this, but the menus and tables were sticky and smelled weird. The service was also a bit slow as well, but it’s worth it for the dumplings in my opinion. I’m looking forward to going back and trying other soup dumpling flavors and the fried dumplings.

One of the newest dumpling joints in the city, following the trend of the numerous Mandarin Chinese cuisine restaurants hat opened in the past years. Sammi, just like Qinghua and its successors, boasts about its soup dumpling, or xiaolongbao (小笼包), hailing from the city of Shanghai, in southern China. Whereas Qinghua’s own soup dumplings are also very rich in broth, they are folded in a Northern Chinese fashion, while Sammi’s are pleated like it is in Shanghai. I ordered the pork xiaolongbao and the pork panfried dumplings, and even though my expectations weren’t that high, I wasn’t entirely satisfied by the execution of the food.
A bit bigger than expected and their skin being much thicker and starchier than I’m used to, the xiaolongbao were served fresh and piping hot in a bamboo basket. For newbies, the store owners were kind enough to leave a how-​to pamplet at each table to help them mix the dipping sauce and eat the dumplings. The broth was satisfyingly dripping after the first bite, rich and savoury. The meat filling was salted to meet expectations and it complemented the taste of the dough. However, I find the saltiness a bit too overwhelming for this type of dumpling, especially since they’re dipped in a mixture of black vinegar, soy sauce and chili oil.
The panfried dumplings are a total letdown: the meat was unexpectedly really salty and the dough was too chewy for comfortable eating. The extra oil added to the dumplings during the frying step was dampening the dough, stealing away its usual crispiness. Usually, dumplings are let to drip before being served, but since it was during lunch rush hour I guess this step could’ve been skipped.
Sammi might not deliver the best xiaolongbao I ever had, but it’s one of the only two places I know in the city that offer proper xiaolongbao, made according to the Shanghai fashion. I will come back whenever I feel nostalgic about the Pearl of the Orient, but otherwise the other regular dumplings aren’t worth the detour.

We started off on the wrong foot with Sammi. We waited close to an hour for a take out order the first time we visited. But the dumplings were SO GOOD, so bursting with brothy flavorful magic, that we had to give them a second chance. We never had another bad experience!
My absolute favorite is the classic steamed pork. I admire restaurants that stick to a few items and do them perfectly. These dumplings are perfect! It took me a while to get the hang of eating them, with my sorry chopstick skills, but now I’m a dumpling-​eating champion!
After sampling a few other surrounding dumpling restaurants, I’m confident that these dumplings are the only ones for me!

I have been to this place 5 – 6 times now. I am from Shanghai and I have to say this is the first place I have found in Montréal that serves decent xiao long bao (little dragon soup dumplings), which comes close to the authentic ones you get in Shanghai.
HOWEVER, the service is amongst the worst I have experienced, even for Chinese restaurant standards. Last time I was here, I ordered the jellyfish, seasoned cucumber, xiao long bao and the Shanghai fried bun (Sheng Jian Bao).
When we sat down at our table, it took about 20 mins before we got our water and here is the «best» part, the water we go was actually the water that our neighbouring table had. I watched one of the waitress bring the water to the next table, leave, then get called back because the table next to us wanted room temperature water. I then watched the waitress pick those cups of water, turn around and place those same cups of water on our table. She then walks away as if nothing happened. I was completely shocked. Even if a place is popular and cheap and has good xiao long bao, this should never be done. It is unsanitary.
If you think this is bad, then just wait and keep reading.
The cucumber we ordered were fully mushy, and it tasted fermented. I know that these cucumbers are soaked chili oil for flavour, but I don’t think they should taste carbonated and mushy as if they were made last week and left out all week.
The jellyfish was decent, but a bit on the salty side.
The xiao long bao were pretty good, but tasted less soup filled than usual and less hot. I feared after that they were not steamed long enough, but thankfully, the pork looked cooked and I did not get sick after.
The best (or worst) part was the Shanghai fried bun. I watched the cook place it in the frier and I also watched him take it out. I then heard him comment to the waitress in Chinese that these Shanghai fried buns were not like the usual batches he makes. I watched him leave it on the counter for about 10min, before the waitress decide to serve it to us anyways. The cook was right, it did look a bit odd. I opened one up and of course, I could see raw pork and uncooked dough. At this point in time, I called the waitress over and pointed out that the Shanghai fried bun was still raw inside. Instead of apologizing, she instead gave me a dirty look when I asked if I can have a new pair of chopsticks. The waitress took the buns and walked to the front, where she pokes around into the bun and confirm with the cook in Chinese that the pork was indeed raw.
At this point in time, any other restaurant would have at least ask me if I would like a new batch made and apologized for any in conveniences. I understand, stuff like this happen even in the best restaurants and its ok if it only happens once or twice and they handle the situation properly. But at this place, instead of of making a new batch, they took the half open Shanghai fried buns that was on our table, stick them back into the frier and then return them to our table.
I was completely shocked and very upset. First of all, they have ruined the Shanghai fried bun, which is also a specialty dish from Shanghai. Secondly, it is just unacceptable for them to behave in such a manner to customers and also handle food like this.
I had a hard time deciding which star rating to give this place…
For the xiao long bao alone, I would give this place a 4 star rating, but for eveything else, they deserve a 1 star rating at the most and I hope for the customer’s sake, they improve their food safety. I hope that no ones has to go home with gastro…
I am still undecided if I want to go back to this place. If you do go, watch what you are getting carefully.

Visitamos o lugar através das indicacoes. Esperava mais, os dumplings sao bons, mas comparado ao Mothers de Toronto, este ainda é o melhor que conhecemos nesta viagem. Lugar simples, pontos de melhoria Limpeza pratos.