Shanghai East Restaurant

This location is closed, but they have reopened in Millbrae as Shanghai Bistro. Hooray!

Shanghai East is gone and Spicy Empire is taking it’s place. spicy empire lists a locale in s.f. chitown.
Shanghai East has gone Bistro!
Shanghai Bistro
1055 el camino real
Millbrae, Ca.
(650)692−8858
x locale of family china bistro, next mcd. lots of parking.

Had dinner here and I was not too impressed. Ordered Leek with Eel Paste and Fish Filled with Brown Sauce for dinner. The eel is the better one of the two. The sauce was tasty and the eel has a good texture that is not mushy nor tough. Although I was slightly disturbed by the amount of oil on the plate. Granted restaurant Chinese food aren’t really known for being healthy, that amount of oil is still insane. The fish dish was quite disappointing. The fish was over-​fried at a temperature that’s too low. The meat soaked up a lot of the oil and was tough. The sauce was totally overpowering. It had an overwhelming aftertaste and left me thirsty for hours. I found it hard to have more than a few pieces. The chef was just too liberal in oil and seasoning usage.

In a bind I guess this place will do. After trying it 2 times and striking out each time with food that looks excitingly yummy but lacks flavor I think I will move on.
I was excited to get my XLB on. This place need to just rename it dumplings. The skin is thick and there is absolutely no juice in them.
The noodles with special sauce tasted like the special sauce was soy sauce.
The salt and pepper tofu had a thick coating on it… it was like KFC had experimented with tofu.

Came here for lunch after paddling. I could not find parking near Little Shanghai and feeling extremely hungry, I decided to stop at Shanghai East instead.
I ordered a savory soy milk, Ma Lan Tou and XLB. Ma Lan Tou is a spinach like vegetable, cut, blanched then squeeze dried. It is served mixed with finely diced five spice tofu. The Ma Lan Tou has a subtle bitterness, which is a good match to the soy and sesame seed oil dressing. The dish is serve chilled and I enjoy it very much.
The savory soy milk was a little different from other versions I had tasted in the Bay area. Here, in addition to fried stick dough, chili oil and green onion, I tasted black wood ear mushroom. The mushroom had a crunchy texture, but also gave the soy milk a herbal smell which I did not like.
The last dish was the Xiao Long Bao. But probably because I let the XLB sat while I worked on the savory soy milk, I did not enjoy this version. While the skin of the XLB was very thin, I found the stuffing was moist, it did not have much broth in the filling.
I had heard good things about this place and want to come back and try them again, but based on the food I had tried so far, I would not come back.

To come to any Shanghainese restaurant after having superb/​cheap places in NYC… you knew my expectations were high.
I didn’t have too many expectations since I was in a different region, but decided to give it a try. We ordered the soup dumplings, shanghainese rice cakes, and bean curd & soy beans. The soup dumplings barely had soup in them, and the soup tasted like a normal diluted watery soup. I could eat them in a tiny bite, and they just weren’t hitting the spot like it does at Joe’s Shanghai or Shanghai Kitchen. I will, however, give them credit for making a mean ricecake dish. I commented on the fact that it was cooked with less oil and didn’t taste oily — the pork and cabbage complemented the dish nicely. The veggies were okay, but I do like soy beans.
I admit, I might not be giving enough credit as Shanghainese cuisine is simple. My experience wouldn’t deter me from coming back again to get a quick bite. 3 dishes amounted to $ 26.

The dan dan noodles are super yummy, as is the rice cake dish! Sometimes I get a craving for those noodles and want to go back. That’s when I know it’s delicious! The XLB are good, but I think Little Shanghai’s are better. The service is always really fast, and friendly. It’s a small place and does fill up, but I’ve never had a hard time getting a table.

Shanghainese food to me is like grandma’s food. I crave it, I love it, and arguably I grew up loving this more than Hong Kong food. So it’s no surprise that I try to look for Shanghainese food everywhere I go.
We ordered:
1) sweet soy milk
2) xiao long bao (soup dumplings)
3) chives dumplings (jiu cai he zi)
4) Dan dan noodles
5) chicken cold noodles
6) Shanghai fried rice
7) five spice chicken
8) Lion’s head meatballs
That was plentiful for 6 people. We even had leftovers. So, onto the food… the sweet soy milk was pretty good, not overly sweetened. We also agreed that the Dan Dan noodles were good — although it’s spicy enough that if you don’t like spicy, don’t order it. Otherwise, the rest of the food was modest at best. The shanghai fried rice and chives dumplings were pretty good, but I can find better elsewhere. The soup dumplings didn’t really have soup inside and lack flavour. Likewise, the sauce of the chicken cold noodles lacked flavour and it was probably one of the least favourites of mine. The lion’s head meatballs were big, the sauce was good, but the meatball itself was too fatty — the fatty meat to lean meat ratio was way too high, thus making the meatballs «squishy» instead of «meaty». Last but not least, five spice chicken… it didn’t feel like the «five spice» Chinese seasoning at all, but rather a slightly different version of General Tso’s chicken… taste decent, but I still don’t understand, why «five spice»?
The service was pretty good. Nothing too fancy, as you’d expect from a Chinese place. With competition from the other Shanghainese places on the same street though, I’m not sure I’d go here that often.

Staff is super friendly and efficient. Food is pretty good. Typical traditional Shanghai style, meaning your sticky rice zhong zi is just meat, not all the fixings like Catonese style and no char siu bao (steamed pork buns) for Dim Sum. Nevertheless, excellent dumplings, egg rolls, shredded radish pastry, wonton soup and spicy eggplant.
Space is very tight and small. sat in the back near the restrooms and there’s a lot of traffic going out of the kitchen side door.
Mostly Asian customers, so you know the stuff is good. Waitress does speak English though, and is polite about it.
Also, dumplings are available frozen for take home. Yum!

Dude… the XLB has gone downhill & the onion pancakes tasted like the frozen stuff. I hope it was an off day :(
The vegetable pork soup noodles however were insanely good.

There is something very wrong on Unilocal if a crappy place like Happy Café ranks higher than Shanghai East. Shanghai East is very good at authentic, Shanghainese-​style Chinese food. The service may be curt, but at least it is fast, and really just about what you’d expect at a low-​key Chinese restaurant.
Come here for some of the best xiao long bao in the Bay Area. I just had some yesterday, and they were as good as I had remembered — juicy, flavorful, and not reheated. I’m also a fan of their pickled veggie and pork noodle soup, which actually uses high quality noodles.
The thing to remember is that this is Shanghai style. Not Taiwanese. Not Sichuan. It will not be very spicy, nor have super strong flavors. And the chicken will not be cooked through to the marrow. But I think this is a reflection of their cultural food style rather than the quality of the restaurant. I’m Shanghainese (though separated from Shanghai by one generation), and this place has my stamp of approval.

WARNING: DO NOT SIT AT THE ROUND TABLE CLOSEST TO THE KITCHEN. THEY HOVER… all of the waitstaff… right near the table. It sucked. I really had a difficult time fully enjoying the meal.
Our dishes came quickly — like really fast! The onion pancake was good. The lion’s head was good. But the xiao long bao was a huge disappointment. Each one was small, and the meat inside was even smaller. The taste was simply not there. Our tofu dish was acceptable. Our noodle dishes were okay — but we were disappointed that they didn’t make their own noodles. We ordered some other dishes but they simply weren’t memorable.
We may come back again — I’m just not sure. As you can tell, I was pretty turned off by the hovering. *shudder*

Just A-​Ok for me.
My trip to san mateo was not to eat here. I drove into San Mateo to try out The Noodles House — supposedly open by Shanghai Dumplings. But when i got to the restaurant the uncharming chinese name made me think twice. Anyways back on topic…
I ordered:
1 order of dumpling
1 order of Stir Fried Onion w/​Oil over Noodles
1 order of Pork Chop Nian Gao
1 order of Soy Bean Milk
1 order of Yuo Tiao
1 order of Shanghai Style Sticky Rice
the dumplings weren’t better then Kingdom of Dumplings in San Francisco. The Yuo Tiao were Cantonese style not taiwanese style. The Soy Bean Milk was pretty decent, it had taste and wasn’t like water.
The best thing i liked was the noodles. It was basically Fried Onions in oil and mixed with noodles. Definitely the best i’ve tried in the bay area. i’ve never tasted something like this before in the bay area. it definitely tasted something that was close to taiwan.
BTW, if your not into sweets, don’t come here. a lot of the dishes were very sweet. not a good place to eat if someone in your family has diabetes.
Anyways, i’ll definitely come back if i want some of that noodles again.

The boy and I went here per my boss’s recommendation. It was a Thursday night, so we considered it another one of our «cheap date nights.»
We had a hard time finding the place (b/​c we don’t know the in’s and out’s of SM that much + their sign was hard to read) but when we got there, it wasn’t as packed as I thought it was going to be. We got seated right away and we also had a hard time reading the menus or understanding. Thank goodness that the waiter/​server was nice and pointed us to the right way. We just ordered the dumplings (2 orders) + beans sprouts with garlic + house fried rice + pancake. The dumplings (good thing we ordered 2) b/​c they’re smaller. It had a lot more juice but to us, it was kinda bland. The beans sprouts that they used were the older version (I liked the other kinda, hard to explain) and their friend rice… was bland as well.
Over all, we tried it and we explored. We accomplished both and I guess we’ll keep trying new dumpling place until we find a better or similar taste to the Shanghai Dumpling Shop.

Went here for dinner on Friday and it wasn’t very full. I remember it was a lot more busy during a Sunday afternoon.
I was a little rushed at the time and so took the recommendation from the waiter to get the soya duck. It was terrible. The other items we had was the eel noodle which was pretty good. The Siaw Long Bao is probably one of the better ones in the bay area.
My stomach seem to not agree to something there during that night and so I believe it was from the waitress recommended soya duck. I really should’ve known to take a recommendation from someone working there. Bleh.

I like it, I like it, I like it!
My group order:
— steamed dumplings (5 stars)
— Shanghai style stir-​fried rice cake (3 stars)
— stir-​fried big bean sprout leaves (4 stars, $ 11 is too pricey)
— steamed Lion head meatballs in clear soup (w/​veggie + glass noodles) (4.5 stars)
next time I am going to try the soy sauce version of the lion’s head.
overall, they have a lot of choices, and the wait staff is authentic Shanghai/​Chinese people. Menu items are your typical Shanghai style dishes, still waiting to try several more items.

Came here for breakfast and that’s probably my mistake right there. Next time I know that the first thing to find out when eating out for Chinese breakfast is whether or not the Chinese donut is freshly made to order, if not, leave.
Guess what? Shanghai East? Not so much on the fresh donut. It was probably made a few hours before we arrived and it chewed like it. The soy bean milk was filmy — they obviously didn’t filter it enough. Stick rice shu mai? Sounds more interesting than it tastes. Rice + soy sauce + large shu mai skin. Boring boring boring. And it tasted blah. A little on the boring side. We also order the xiao long bao. Slightly better, but far behind many other restuarants that are but a few miles away.

The mission, which had been 16 hours in the planning was to eat Xiao Lung Bao (XLB). So 30 minutes after I got to the office (which was around 10:30), I started planning for lunch. First, you find the location — my cousin mentioned this place, so I searched for it here on Unilocal and wah la! Second you send out communication. Email was sent to all the local agents with immediate confirmation from 6 of them. Next we coordinated the carpools and did the drive-​bys and by 1:00, all of us were promptly seated at a big round table warily looking at the menu because we did after all, only come for 1 thing.
We started with 6 trays of XLB (1 for the each of us), the egg rolls which the restaurant recommended and 1 order of the Shanghai style pan fried buns. The egg rolls were crunchy — but the ones my mom makes (which are stuffed to the point of bursting with meat … and not that vegetable garbage) are a tough act to follow. The Shanghai style pan fried puns were decent … better then most places I’ve tried. Neither of those dishes were so outstanding that the 6 of us felt compelled to order another … The XLB — I would give 4 out of 5 stars. The skin was a tad thicker then I like it, but it made those suckers pretty resilient. All were pretty consistantly juicy with a nice quantity of meat inside. We ate 10 trays (8 each) and left with happy bellies.
The service was great — it’s always nice to find fellow Shanghainese people outside of the motherland. I’ll be back next time I have a XLB craving.
P. S. I give this place 4.5 stars. The extra half point because they gave each of us our own little vinegar trays for the XLB. It’s nice when the staff recognizes serious XLB’ers.

One of my new favorite Mandarin-​style chinese restaurants in the peninsula area. Authentic tasty chinese dishes at very reason prices (many $ 5.95 and $ 6.95) with decent service. Strong selection of Mandarin dim sum and noodle dishes (see pictures).
The steamed pork dumplings (xiao long baos) were really good — they came out hot with delicate thin skin on the outside and a burst of juice when you bite into them. The Chinese veggies stir fried with garlic was also very tasty — perfectly cooked (and not overcooked) with a perfect amount of garlic. The ma po tofu was hot and spicy as expected and I liked it a lot except that the type of Chinese chili powder they used left a slightly weird aftertaste. The cold noodles with chicken was only okay — the sauce was a bit too vinegary. (See pictures of all the dishes mentioned.)
Bottom line: If you are looking for authenic Mandarin/​Shanghai style Chinese food, you should be reasonably pleased here. And it’s validated by the many Chinese clientele that come here. However, if you are looking for American-​style Chinese (more like the General Gao’s or shrimp and walnuts with mayonnaise), this is probably not the place for you.

A very good value for the price. I’ve read some poor reviews about their service, but the service we received was just fine. Since I am not an expert on Shanghainese food, I cannot comment on their authenticity, but most of the dishes I tried were very good. Ironically, I did not think that XLBs, which they are known for, were anything special. I’ve had much juicier ones at Yang Sing.
We ate quite a bit, yet walked out with less than $ 20/​person.
They have 5 – 6 nice round tables for big groups.
Don’t come here for their décor.