And my epiphany was shot down when I discovered that they (at least during last year) had a lunch menu:
Shanghai Bun Lunch Menu 2018.pdf (1.8 MB)
I haven’t seen it in the restaurant in ages. Notice how it looks like every other Chinese restaurant’s lunch menu for Westerners. 
Wow, I have never seen this menu (not that I want to order from it) and I have to have been there at least 50 times, including many lunches.
My son likes chicken and broccoli so I have both seen and ordered from that menu 
And you’re certain he’s YOURS? 
Yeah, what kind of father raises a son who goes to Shanghai Bun and orders Chicken and Broccoli?
I called Shanghai Bun Saturday and while they answered, when I asked if they were doing take-out, the woman said, “Another week,” which I assume means some time around May 1.
Got take-out from Shanghai Bun today. There were at least two people working and I had to identify which order was mine, so business has picked up a bit. We got Pork in Hot Bean Paste Sauce Noodles (thick homemade noodles, quite spicy), Stir-Fried Cicken Hot Pot (tasty broth, but the chicken pieces have bones and I found it too hard to eat), Pork and Eggplants, and Black Mushroom, Tofu, and Bok Choy. The last two we’re saving for another meal, and we still have leftovers from the first two. This, combined with my visit to AFM yesterday to stock up on dried mushrooms and Maesri curry sauces, will hold us for a while.
How was your visit to AFM?
Stir-Fried Cicken Hot Pot
Is that a board special? I don’t remember seeing it on their menu.
Shanghai Bun’s chicken with bone dishes are all really tough to eat. I am a fiend for bone gnawing and I can’t even deal with their shit. Every piece you get is the same chopped cut right off the joint where maybe 20% of the thing is meat, and you’re basically guaranteed to get a bone shrapnel in your mouth every other bite.
Stir-Fried Chicken hot Pot is S13 on their menu. I agree about the bone thing. But it is authentic. When we were in China (1982), Mark wrote, " The Chinese have those giant meat cleavers and they seem to chop meat with gross indifference to where there are and are not bones. They just seem to cut up a chicken with eight random cuts, bake it, and put a sauce over it. Most of the chicken or duck dishes have more bones than meat and eating them seems to be an art." At some other point he described it as slicing the chicken the way we slice bread (with no regard for where the bones are).
The one complaint I ever had about my favorite Szechuan place up north was the rabbit…too many tiny pieces and tons of bones.
I am good with cut up chicken with bones everywhere, but at Bun if you get something like their spicy chicken with bone, it’s like they are all the same piece and every single piece has bone shrapnel… why 
Another Shanghai Bun take-out yesterday. I stuck to things that re-heat well (no bok choy, for example): Pork with Eggplant, Noodles with Spicy Bean Paste Sauce, Fish Fillets in Spicy Sauce, and Mongolian Lamb. Noodles were nice and spicy, Mongolian Lamb less so. The other two are still pending. (Rather than eat all four for several meals, we do two dishes per meal, so we get some variety.) Next trip may be Sichuan Cottage, though it’s hard to justify driving that far, even for their wonderful Three Pepper Chicken.
I like the soups and dumplings at Shanghai Bun, but they don’t travel as well, so we’re saving those for when we can actually eat there (though who knows where that will be?).
I made the trip Friday to take home my favorite combo - Bean paste noodles with pork and noodles with spicy peanut sauce. I mix them together before eating. Unlike the soup, both noodle dishes travel well.
I actually occasionally make noodles with spicy peanut sauce, so we don’t do it as take-out, but we do have it there (and Sichuan Cottage) sometimes.
Shanghai Bun again: Steamed Dumplings, Leek Dumplings, and Vegetarian Spring Roll for today; Red Hot Fish Filets, Pork and String Beans, and Spicy Pepper with Fried Tofu for the next few days.
I asked about eat-in. They’re not doing it yet; they could open only two tables so it wouldn’t be worth it. They seem to be doing okay on take-out–I saw two bags besides mine, and another person came in and ordered while I was there.
(Could someone fix the header to make “Shanghai” one word? Every time I search for the thread I have problems.)
Sunday’s pickup: Leek Dumplings; Vegetarian Spring Roll; Pork and Eggplant; Vegetable and Bean Curd Noodles; Mushroom, Napa, and Bean Sheet Curd; Shrimp and Fish.
We’re working our way through the menu, but we may go back to our old favorites. The Mushroom, Napa, and Bean Sheet Curd sauce did not have much flavor, and was watery rather than thickened. The Vegetable and Bean Curd Noodles also didn’t seem to me to have much flavor. The Shrimp and Fish had what Mark calls “red ketchup sauce”; I liked it, but he was less favorable. The rest were old favorites. (Overall, I think the quality of Sichuan Cottage is higher, but Shanghai Bun is much closer and does have some very good items–for example, fried dumplings. Alas, the best items don’t travel well.)
Prices have gone up a smidge on some items (but not all, and only about 50 cents for main dishes). I took pictures of the wall menu boards:
(The second picture is appallingly out of focus, but perhaps better than nothing; I will take another picture next time I go.)
The “Tomato w/ Egg” on the specials blackboard is one of my favorites.
I think I’ve tried almost every dish there other than the noodle soups now, I think I’m missing around 5 excluding the specials board. There are definitely some items that were merely ok that I basically immediately forgot about. On the other hand - the other day I tried their shu mai which I haven’t had in a while because I wasn’t ever a huge fan, and holy shit it was amazing!! Highly recommend if that’s an improved recipe or something. Super meaty, bursting with juices and flavor.
I’ve been getting their cumin lamb a lot, I jack it up at home with extra cumin, chili and sichuan pepper. 
Thanks for the board pics!!
Thanks for recommending the meat loaf. It’s not something we would normally have tried (“meat loaf” to me is ground beef with Campbell’s chicken and rice soup et al), but this was nothing like that. It was more like giant meatballs of dumpling filling without the dough wrapper, and with napa and black mushrooms on cellophane noodles in a rich sauce.
The rest of the order was Spicy Seafood Noodle Soup, Tomato with Egg, and Cumin Lamb, the last two on hold until Saturday.
There was another couple waiting for an order and three people cooking in the kitchen (all properly masked), so I’m hoping this means they’re doing well enough to keep going without indoor dining. (Lord knows lots of mediocre Chinese restaurants manage entirely on take-out.)
