Location: 5457 Yonge Street, North York
Website: https://ibund.net/

It’s always nice when the name of the restaurant tells you exactly what to order.  IBUND Classic Shanghai Potstickers (there’s a name that just rolls right off the tongue) has a pretty broad menu of Shanghai classics, but obviously, you’ve gotta try the potstickers.

There’s no description for anything in the menu, but everything you need to know about the Juicy Pork Potstickers is right there in the name — they’re stuffed with a generous amount of nicely-spiced pork, and they are indeed quite juicy.  They’re almost at soup dumpling levels of juiciness, and they’re really satisfying.

There isn’t a single thing about them that I’d change — the wrapper isn’t too thick and has a great texture, they’re perfectly fried with a nice crispy bottom, and the pork inside is thoroughly tasty.  They’re the restaurant’s specialty, and you can tell.  Seriously good.

I also tried the Shanghai Style Pork Mooncake, which the menu notes is recommended.  Between the flaky dough and the ground meat filling, this kinda felt like a Chinese version of a Jamaican patty.  I enjoyed it, even if it’s not quite on the level of the potsticker (but then what is?).

Finally, I tried the Shanghai Eight-Treasure Spicy Noodles, which you can get dry or with soup (I went dry).  Oddly, it’s not spicy at all, but otherwise this featured chewy, pleasantly salty noodles (I’m pretty sure the dry noodle base is their scallion oil noodles) topped with a slightly sweet, meaty topping.  I legitimately have no idea what that meat was (or if it even was all meat — some of the pieces seemed like they weren’t?), but it was tasty.