Shanghai Garden Asian Bistro

Aw man, it’s probably closed because the location sucks :(It’s on Live Oak in a very residential area, so there’s not much driving traffic here. If it was on Baldwin, it’d definitely thrive because this place is WAY better than Tasty Garden and Garden Café.
The Chinese dishes here are all pretty solid. I LOVE the hot and sour soup, the black bean fish, and the sauteed shrimp. It’s just a great place for decently priced Chinese food. Sad to see it go :(

I came here for lunch with my husband service is great and amazing food
I love the fried calamari and sesame chicken its the best… will definitely come back. :) best happy hour in town!!!

Its been a long time since I wrote a review but for this place I felt compelled to do so. I, like so many others, went there with a Living Social voucher. I was excited to eat there for the first time. I should have known it was a bad sign when the fried chicken wings I ordered were bloody on the inside. I informed the waitress and she had them fry them again and took it off the bill. The cashew nut chicken and beef in garlic sauce tasted similar to Panda Express and were a lot pricier.
When dinner was over, I presented my voucher and to my surprise, the waiter informed me it had already been used. I explained that it was impossible because I had never been there. He said he had to go by what the machine said. I asked to speak to the manager who said I needed to contact Living Social which were already closed and dispute it with them. He said it was redeemed yesterday and I told him it was definitely a mistake. I was very upset at him and the situation. My boyfriend paid for the bill and we anxiously left knowing that we will never return.

The food here is AMAZING! Whoever disagrees shocks me. Never had a mistake here, owner Steve is extremely friendly and caring. Lemon chicken and orange chicken is to die for! my go to place when I’m in the mood for chicken

Fiancée bought a living social deal and we were finally in the area to try this place. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were the only customers there. The servers were attentive. The food was pricey (the shanghai cripsy chicken was $ 20+, I think i rather spend $ 20 elsewhere) and did not seem to have authentic Chinese food since many of the dishes were Chinese dishes that were invented and only exists in the United States (for example, egg foo young or general Tso’s chicken). There is a private parking lot in the back.
Overall, I would not come back here again since there are other better Chinese restaurants in the area.

I came here for lunch with the Livingsocial deal. The restaurant is quaint and very clean. For a chinese restaurant, it has very modern décor. The restaurant was empty on a Saturday afternoon. Our waitress was very nice and the service was good throughout the meal.
It’s nice how they offer lunch specials on a weekend! We had their popular sesame chicken and honey walnut shrimp. The honey walnut shrimp is only listed on their dinner menu. Thus, it didn’t come with a bowl of soup like the sesame chicken. They give you the option of hot and sour soup or wonton soup. We had the hot and sour soup and it was pretty good. The sesame chicken was crunchy and my favorite dish! They use real pieces of chicken and didn’t go crazy with the breading. Docked one start for the honey walnut shrimp. The shrimp was drenched with sauce and had an interesting tanginess to it. It was mixed with cantaloupe balls and walnuts and presented on a bed of greens. I wiped off a majority of the sauce with the greens or my napkin.
Minus another star because the portion size of a lunch entrée was the exact same as a regular priced item. Their lunch entrees are generous for the price. But I couldn’t justify for the honey walnut shrimp at $ 13. Food is okay with awesome service!

The food here is good and comparable to other Asian restaurants in the area, but what makes this place 5-​stars is the amazing service that was provided for my friend’s party/​presentation about a month ago.
For the party, there were about 20 people in attendance. We were hosted in a back room that had 3 different tables (room for up to 30), as well as 3 TV’s and even a karaōke station. Ample private parking lot, contrary to many other Chinese restaurants.
In terms of courses, the memorable ones were the lemon chicken, pad thai, and various stir fried items. Taste-​wise, everything was good, maybe not amazing, but indeed good.
Service, like I said, was exceptional! Before the presentation started, the staff helped my friend figure out the intricacies of connecting her Mac to their TV and even set up a mic for her (unprompted). Finally, they were very attentive when it came to the courses, beverage refills, and keeping the tables clean.
5 stars for amazing service and great food. Highly recommended for small events!

This place is outside the Huntington, Santa Anita, Duarte area where all the good Asian foods are of arcadia. This place is okay as far as food is concerned. The Chinese food is just almost like Panda Express. I only went here to redeem my free livingsocial. They still deserve at least 3 stars because their service was good, or above average for an Asian restaurant. This place also serves alcohol and there’s a bar area where you can watch your sports too!
There may be parking in the lot, if not there’s a residential street that you can park in.

I was pleasantly surprised at the food and service of this particular restaurant. I was running errands around this neighborhood and decided to stop by to try their food. The interior of the restaurant appears to be recently modernized along with a mini bar that sports three large flat television screens. The waitress even seemed to be quite interested in watching football as well. I really enjoyed the lunch special that I ordered. It was a garlic chicken plate which included egg drop soup. It was delicious and reasonably priced. I felt very relaxed in the restaurant as I ate my lunch and gazed at those flat screen televisions.

Besides the reference to «Shanghai» in the restaurant name, this place has nothing to do with shanghainese cuisine.
It’s more so an over priced Panda Express… With slightly better quality and really good service.
Two stars cause I was tricked by the name while looking for shanghainese food… And I’m too Chinese to be eating things like mu shu pork and egg fu young.

I’ve driven past this establishment several times and finally decided to try it since I had a Living Social deal. We ordered the Shanghai Crispy Chicken, Sesame Chicken & Shrimp with String Beans.
The Sesame Chicken wasn’t bad. Not overbearing in flavor. A little spicy but not too spicy. This was my favorite for the night.
The Shrimp with String Beans tasted pretty good too but not enough shrimp. Most of the dish was made up of the string beans. So I pretty much paid $ 13 for veggies.
The Shanghai Crispy Chicken was the dish that really took me by surprise. $ 20 and it didn’t really taste all that great. You really have to squeeze the lemon over the chicken because it’s pretty bland without it.
We may or may not try this place again. Nothing really stood out in taste that made me think «wow» but you never know.

Great little find close to home.
The menu has a little bit of everything. They offer traditional items like mapo tofu to nontraditional items like orange chicken.
Everything we had was delicious and up to par with the huge Asian restaurants.
We had:
Salt and Pepper pork chop
Mapo Tofu
Black bean fish filet
General Tsao chicken
Your meal comes with a serving of rice.
Accepts Amex
Has a parking lot
Offers a separate banquet room for events
Cute modern interior
This place is a keeper.

As a long time resident of the San Gabriel Valley, this restaurant ranks low on authenticity when it comes to Chinese food. The interior is nicer than a Panda Express, but I’d say the chefs at PE are probably better… at least compared to the Panda Express over in Arcadia. (Yes, yes… if you haven’t figured it out… not all Pandas taste the same. Some ARE better than others.)
Starters:
I was given a bowl of egg drop soup & hot and sour soup as a part of the lunch deal. They were not bad, but again… they didn’t blow my mind.
Items ordered:
egg rolls (w/​pork)… not too bad except for the ends that were burnt to a crispy black exterior color
braised green beans… not bad, but not the greatest… try Phoenix for better.
kung pao chicken… Alright, we all know that this dish is THE standard to judge how good a restaurant is. If a chef can’t get the KPC right, then it’s game over. Well, sad to report that this was one of the most unauthentic KPCs I’ve had. Who in the world puts BASIL into KPC!!! It must be a Thai chef. In addition, there was quite an off taste to this dish. I suspect it was due to the burnt hot chili peppers which really ruined the flavor of the entire dish.
Surprisingly, with the two entrees I ordered, I was only given one bowl of rice. Since I am watching my carb intake, I didn’t ask for more rice, but really? I’m so used to the giant vat of family style rice given at most of the local Chinese restaurants.
Well, this place will need to work a lot harder to improve the taste of their food if they want to compete successfully with the local Chinese restaurants. Perhaps, they are catering more to a non-​Asian crowd? First dead give away… the forks. ;)
This would definitely be a good place for Americanized «Chinese» food. ;)

I went there with my family because of a Livingsocial coupon I bought. First of all, I need to clarify that this place has nothing to do with Shanghai besides its name. Although the resturant is decorated in a very Chinese way and they play old Chinese pop music, what they serve is very Americanized Chinese food: you can expect to find items in Panda Express very similar to the dishes they have in their menu. But the price in this resturant is no doubt much higher.
We ordered «Shanghai» crispy chicken, walnut shrimp, and mu shu beef wraps. They also gave us a small dish of complimentary «Shanghai» cucumber as appetizer. Like most Americanized Chinese food (which I am not fond of), the dishes were too oily, either too sweet or too salty. However, if judging from Americanized Chinese food standard, I would say, they are not bad, better than Panda Express, but do not worth the price you need to pay.
Overall, I think it’s an OK restuarant. The restuarant looks clean and well decorated. The service was good and the staff were friendly. The wait was not long (perhaps since we were the only customers there then). But in an Asian community, unless you are a big fan of Americanized Chinese food, you can easily find better alternatives with much lower price.

Two stars to Shanghai Garden only because of service. Dan, our waiter, was excellent. The food, however, was very disappointing.
Stir-​fried dishes such as the beef lo mien had no hint, in terms of flavor, smell and texture, of wok hei (, i.e. the signature essence of correct wok technique). Also, the MSG and blandness of the dish were too noticeable.
The sesame chicken, listed as their signature dish, was no better that regular take-​out. The batter was too thick and pieces were unevenly cut, resulting in medium and smaller pieces being terribly overcooked and dry. The shiny coating sauce and presentation were acceptable.
We had a cup of soup – wonton and hot and sour sour – which were okay but a bit too scant. The portion size of the appetizer – pork egg roll – was also pretty small, and it was not a classic egg roll as in the Chinese American culinary canon but rather the smaller and crispier classic spring roll. In terms of flavor, it was nothing special. Also, the texture of the steam rice was off, meaning much of it broken because of overcooking.
All in all, we will probably not return, considering there are so many more serious and more fairly priced (e.g. Newport Tan Cang Seafood Restaurant) Chinese restaurants in the area.

Was visiting my brother in Arcadia, and we were hungry for Chinese late one Sunday night. He mentioned this place which opened about 9 months ago which is two block from his house, yet he had not tried it yet.
As we parked, I was skeptical, as it was totally void of customer inside, but decided to give it a try, as it had an «A» rating from the health dept (something that few chinese resturants have) and it looked very nice inside.
Sat down and looked at the menu, and it was very apparent that this IS NOT a Shanghainese place. (Why anyone would open a place anywhere in the San Gabrial Valley area with the name Shanghai in the title, and not serve Shanghainese food, is beyond me.)
Instead the serve a basic selection of Cantonese dishes, with a few other types tossed in.
However, we were too hungry to go else where, and so ordered.
We ordered: Black Bean Fish Fillet (Flounder), Curry Shrimp, Spicy drunken noodles, Happy Family Vegy, Seafood Stir fry, and shrimp and pork dumplings.
We ended up being quite surprised, as all the dishes were good, with the black bean fish and the spicy drunken noodles being very good.
Bottom line — this place is A-​ok. Cannot give it more then 3 stars, as there are better place around, plus the fact that it is falsely calling itself a Shanghainese, when it is not

1^st time, awesome.
I do have to say, this restaurant wasn’t too busy when I went in for a late dinner.
There was a guy at the bar who helped me and I told him I wanted to try some food here because I drove around this place more than several times and wanted to give them a shot!
Service was great.
Food: I ordered the spicy Szechuan beef. Amazingly good with a kick to it.
Pineapple fried rice, also very good, portion was average for the price.
Walnut Mayo Shrimp, this one was also a recommended dish, BOMB. Gonna come back for this. pretty BIG shrimps and they even add a little touch to it, they have melon balls blended in and the bottom of the plate, they added some lettuce, I even ate that too since it had just the right amount of sauce on it… YUM.
Pork Lo Mein: this one was… eh, a okay. This dish didn’t «shine» like the other ones did.
Overall, I would come back and try other foods. I asked for their Lobster and they said it was a little late and were out of many of the «special» herbs and didn’t want to sell me something if it wasn’t done right and missing ingredients. I was happy to hear the man tell me this instead of charging me probably $ 50 or 70 dollars for the dish.
Price: average comparing to a decent chinese food actual dining restaurant. Now Portion is medium, not a lot of big plates but its a new little place I would come back for sure.

Shanghai Garden is one of those rare finds where the staff is courteous, the food is good, and you leave feeling like you’ve just spent time with friends rather than at just another restaurant.
My friends invited me to a gathering at SG a few weeks back. One of my co-​workers insisted that it would be a great place to have our Fantasy Football draft. Of course I thought this was a strange idea since noodles and friend rice aren’t the natural pairing I first think of when it comes to a bunch of guys hanging out making fantasy picks– But it all worked out pretty well. Dan, the owner, was warm and welcoming, letting us use his back room where our rowdy behavior wouldn’t bother anyone else (arranged by another of my co-​workers), which worked out perfect because before we knew it we’d managed to convince Dan to share in a couple of beers with us as we all laughed and had a great time.
I can’t say enough good things about SG. The places is immaculate. The design stylish and clean. Even the bathrooms are pretty damn nice. Go visit them if you’re ever in the neighborhood. You won’t be disappointed. Oh and try the signature chicken (forget the actual name, but ask your server and they’ll know it), it’s awesome.

I was misled by the reviews and decided to try this place. By the way, I am always skeptical when most of the 5 star reviews come from reviewers with 1 to 5 reviews. Once I looked at the menu and saw that not a single seat was taken during noon lunch hour, I was tempted to walk out, but I stuck it out.
The food is edible but nothing special. Prices are way overpriced for this area, especially with the variety of authentic Chinese food in Arcadia. As an example, moo shu pork was $ 12. When you look at the outside décor of this run-​down building and dingy parking lot, you will realize it is way overpriced. Lunch did not come with soup as is almost customary with most other Chinese places. Wait staff could not speak Chinese.
If you are looking for authentic Chinese food, stay away. I give them 6 months if they don’t revamp. We were the only table throughout the entire lunch. Not a good sign and for just cause.

Alright. So me and my friends have been wanting to try this place out for a while now… and finally, we were all free to go, so we decided to come for some lunch!
As we entered, we were greeted, definitely a beautiful place
It has definitely has a «Feng Shui» feeling going on.
Onto the important part!
The food… amazing.
We definitely got the sesame chicken as a friend of mine suggested and…
It is amazing. Crispy, yet tender, making my mouth water as I even think about it!
The sweet and sour pork, amazing as well!
As you can tell, me and my friends need that protein.
I would definitely come back again as I cannot get enough of that sesame chicken!
A fantastic place, definitely recommended! A++++!