New Shanghai Tan Restaurant

For a long time Shanghai Tide was *it* for the AYCE hot pot game. Huo Guo (火鍋) /​Shabu Shabu food baby seekers could get their eat on for $ 25 (tip included), which included soup dumplings and all you can drink budweiser. Even at $ 30 today, this is still a really good deal, but the hot pot game has changed city wide. The competition is stiff and Shanghai Tide has its up and down days of being really solid or really mediocre.
AYCE Sushi caught on in the last 10 years, for the next few years, AYCE Hot Pot is starting to turn heads. The communal experience of cooking one’s own vegs and proteins is undoubtedly fun, but the food waste can be bad as any buffet. The English menu is incredibly large, broken down by meats /​vegetables /​and Shanghai small dishes (listed as dim sum). Don’t forget about the sauce station, that’s a crucial step in keeping the food from being too bland.
Meatwise, the usual suspects are there. Standard meats like lamb, chicken, and pork are easy choices, though the myriad of meatballs and dumplings, along with bonus meats like luncheon, pork gizzard, and blue crab. The «dim sum» menu is the most impressive thing to me, with unlimited shengjian bao (生煎包), soup dumplings aka xiao long bao (小籠包), and scallion pancake. There are also spring rolls and a ton of desserts, but I’ve never liked any of them.
The service is about as lackluster as one might expect. I tend to feel the waiters don’t enjoy being given a run down of random stuff where they’ll just bring it out from the freezer (so much of it is frozen) and plop it on the table, hoping for everyone to be stuffed or drunk. Beyond the attitudes, the food isn’t much to get excited about. The food is generally filler stuff, possibly to warrant a bad hangover or prevent one. The quality has been surpassed by the many other hot pot spots around town, but this place is an old reliable.
One thing that is worth pointing out during my last visit: *Something* was crawling through the ceiling and making heaps of noises. It was loud enough to get diners to exit their seats in a scurry. Once we heard a few thumps or two, even my group and I were nervous. The waiters told us to not pay attention and to pay before we leave. So we did but we haven’t been back since.

Well, I think the port steak noodle is really good. but other food we ordered is so so. That is not surprising we are the only customer there for lunch time.

It’s 29.95 for unlimited hotpot including tip. (unlimited beer as well so a star for that! However don’t expect a good choice)
My friend likes to come here for the unlimited amount of clams but that cleanliness of the place is a bit sketch.
The quality of the meat is very mediocre as well as the rest of the items on the menu. However, there is a plethora of choices in terms of vegetables, tofus, meats, seafoods as well as cooked foods (such as chicken wings). The waitress was very nice and accommodating for our big group as it was late at night (stays open until 2 am).
One of the things that irk me about this place is the America’s Choice sodas and the MSG at the sauce station. But like i said, you get what you pay for!

Even with the price hike, I think this is the best AYCE hot pot joint in flushing.
Why?
1. Never stingy with the items. They bring them as you request.
2. All you can drink beer and no bottle charge if you BYOB. This is smart, a can of Bud costs the owner no more than 50 cents and a prawn is worth more than that. Beer fills you up.
3. Additional appetizer like xiaolongbao and dessert at no charge.
Cons:
1.broth base is so-​so.
2. Meat could be cut thinner.
This is a joint I would go if I pay for the dinner because best bang for the bucks.

Never disappointed!
Food is pretty quick, the service is usually friendly, and the quality is pretty good.
I’m a sauce-​fiend so the sauce bar gets two thumbs up from me. A good variety! Big fan of the self-​serve soda bar too.
As of 11/​2014, the price after tax and tips was $ 29.95. I like how they just lay it out for you like that.
What I like most? There’s an app menu that comes with the hot pot. Probably ordered 6 dishes of the soup dumplings. Chicken wings are good too.
Hands down… it’s official. My favorite hot pot place. Only thing that would’ve gave it 5 stars would’ve been a cheaper price.

Their all you can eat hot pot is good, but if you order a lot of sea food, such as fish, crab, shrimp, they will only put up a little, then you have to order again. they will feed you with vagetable and beef first, and wait to get the seafood out. the people there is nice, but it’s too loud to eat there.

I think this is kinda pricey for an all you can eat hot pot restaurant. After tax and tip, it’s about $ 30. I have a couple of complaints about this place. First off, why do we have to share a stove? There should be individual pots. Second, yes it is all you can drink Budweiser but how about some brand named soda? Third, the sauces were so watered down.
Yes, there is a variety of food that usually isn’t included at other places like crab and clams but I rather go to a closer hot pot place with individual pots.

It’s cheap AYCE hotpot.
One star is because they have clams on the menu and the other is because the food comes really quick.
Service is pretty shitty, if you speak mandarin they’re a little bit nicer but not by much. But I guess they figure since tip is already included in the price they don’t really need to bother.

Unfortunately, the quality has gone down greatly. The past two times I was here the soup base was just crap and the meat just tasted like it was very low quality and everything else just didn’t seem fresh or clean.
And the worst thing is the staffs here. They are nasty and slow. They omit the items you order on purpose and pretend not to see you when you flag them down. And when they do come to you, they are just rude and nasty to you. Why be so miserable? Just freaking quit your jobs already
Sorry but I won’t be coming back here again

I always crave for late night hotpot, and this place happens to always be opened for when my crave hits me at 1:30am.
They’ve recently changed the ayce price from $ 26 to $ 28 including tips and tax. I am deeply sadden by this, why? Because price increases sucks.
The cooked food is pretty good, but they take FOREVER to come. I always get the pan fried soup buns, soup dumplings, spring rolls, and scallion pancakes on the side for carbs. The hot pot stuff is all frozen except for the veggies and clams.
Personally I don’t care much about the frozen meat. A lot of ayce joints probably freeze their meat too, but just defrost it before the customers start rolling in. The spicy soup base is always a hit for me, but the regular soup is always a miss. The regular soup base is ridiculously plain. Thank goodness for the sauce section. If it wasn’t for that, i would be literally cooking my food in water.
The staff are pretty old, so theyre a bit slow during late night hours. They’re not really attentive unless you order food from their family style kitchen menu, so you pretty much have to do everything yourself.
This place is great for killing my late night cravings, but I wouldn’t come here if there was another spot opened as late as this one.

Ain’t gonna lie, I used to love coming here for the ayce with beer and it’s all tip included for 26 $. But last time I came it was a disgusting. Soup base is bland and has no flavor at all. Veggies has bugs on them. Beef isn’t as fresh as it used to. Plus when you order a large quantity of food, they slap everything on 1 large platter. Why is it bad to do this? Well as time goes on, the sea water from clams would go on the beef, mushrooms, dumplings, etc. I highly doubt they clean the clams at all. It’s disgusting. And best of all. I swear on my grave I’m not lying about this, I used the restroom where I saw the same employee who brings us our food not wash his hands after doing his business. At the time I didn’t even know to react but chuckle at what I saw. As others mentioned, this place needs a renovation, new staff, and a complete revamp of the Hotpot menu.
If you want good, fresh hotpot that will make you leave happy and satisfied, go Mister Hotpot in BK, Little Sheep in Flushing, or Fukuoka Hotpot.

Décor is so so
Staff are not that nice when you ask for more food they act like moody
Foods are so so
You have choice on menu and wait staff bring to you
28 $ plus tip already with unlimited drink soda. Beer with 2 hours limit
Closed to train station
Totally not recommend

This venue is a sad testament of our times — this is an example of what «old Flushing» used to be in terms of quality and service.
Food: the broth is extremely bland and the items were not all that fresh. Most were obviously newly frozen items that looked like they were cut from a large slicer. A good example would be the beef: edible, yes. Bland and low quality, also yes.
Service: extremely unresponsive. It took too long for them to notice we needed anything and when we needed something, we had to get up to ask.
Décor: disgusting. This place is in dire need of a major renovation.
It is no wonder why there was nobody here on this Tuesday night. There were only two other tables in an otherwise empty restaurant. The Unilocal community knows that it can go to Little Mongolian Hot Pot or Zebra Lounge 2 or Minnie’s Shabu Shabu for good quality food for about the same price.
Skip this place. I came here very often when I was significantly younger and the food was much better. Never again.

Probably the best deal on Shabu Shabu/​Hot Pot in this neighborhood! This place is not fancy. Probably not a place you’d bring a date. Service is very «eh,» considering most waiters only speak enough English to communicate the menu choices with the customers. But it’s a pretty good deal! $ 26 includes all the food, drinks, and tips for one person for two hours. This is plenty of time, as they bring the raw items up to your table very quickly. You make your own sauces, and feel free to get as creative as you want, as this is the only flavoring your meat will have (aside from the soup base on the hot pot). I’ve also never had a problem finding street parking in this area, so that should be good news also. Good place to check out if Shabu Shabu is something you’ve always wanted to try!

Why does this place remind me of an old Irish pub like McSorley’s or a Blarney Stone? It was probably a MacAnn’s in a previously life and the current owners are just cheap. There’s an upstairs and that reminds me of 70’s disco. Besides the non-​décor, the AYCE hotpotting is a good deal and the food is not bad. Base price is $ 20.95 and they even calculate your tax & tip for you to a flat figure of $ 25.95.
When you sit down they’ll ask you what type of soup you prefer, spicy or regular, but you can get a split pot with both or if you have a large group, get multiple pots. The table behind us got extra spicy and it looked like the BP oil spill glistening with chili oil. Order up your favorite meats, veggies, processed fish balls & fungi and start cooking away. You might feel adventurous and try some of the cow and pig innards. Make your specialty dipping sauce because the boiled food is not too flavorful. My recipe is a chunk of scallion, cilantro & garlic with chinese BBQ sauce (sa-​cha), sesame oil, a little soy and chili sauce and maybe a little peanut sauce.
The best thing about Shanghai Tide is that they have other cooked items on the menu like Xiao Lung Bao, scallion pancakes & pan-​fried pork dumplings! And you can have as much as you want for the same price! The worst thing about the place is the waiters. Totally clueless sometimes, just standing around staring off into space when you’re trying to flag them down. Because tax and tip is already figured into the price, they don’t feel like they have to bust their humps for a better tip. A word of warning to not order more than you can eat. The table of 10 people next door left a heaping platter of veggies and they gave them crap about it. I couldn’t hear if they were going to charge them the difference or not. We were stuffed and left some cabbage, so we just tossed it in the soup to camouflage it so we wouldn’t get lectured.

Went walking around Flushing, ended up here as my friends couldn’t find a bar to have some brews. Perfect, because Shanghai Tide serves $ 3 Tsingtao I was suprised though that the Xiaolongbao was actually the worst I’ve ever had that wasn’t from a frozen bag — it was just sketchy all around.
However bad the soup dumplings were, I really enjoyed the Yangzhou Fried Rice and the Sichuan Spicy Beef dish, which from a flavor perspective was very authentic. The quality of the meats could have been better.
I hear this is a place to come for hot pot, so we did something different, but liked it. My friend and I got to practice our poor Mandarin with really friendly servers who spoke very little English but were very fun and super courteous.

in terms of hotpot you definitely get the most here. quality i am not too sure of. they are the old school hot pot restaurants wherethe hot pot is the unit is portable and the kind that you or your friend would have at home unlike the newer places where each person has a pot sinking into the table. the stove was also extremely greased so clearly cleanliness is not something they care much about here. the menu has the typical hot pot offerings but these caught my attention:
blue crab, mussels, steamed soup buns (although they weren’t that great in my opinion), fried chicken wings (which had a really nasty coating of batter that seemed caked on which is probably the best indication this is REALLY old), and scallion pancakes which were actually tasty and crisp. the beef was about the only thing i can pinpoint as being yummy.
the wait staff dont speak much english if any at all (mostly shanghainese and mandarin i believe) and even though the menu is english on one side and chinese on the other. (we ordered in english). the waiter did not get a few things quite right so we ended up with random things we never wanted. oh and not to mention when we left and walked out we realized there was a big fat C rating slopped on the window. excellent… i dont think i’ll be coming back…

My choice of AYCE hot pot anywhere in New York. I always regret eating here afterwards though, because I stuff myself to the point of being uncomfortable.
The selection of items is amazing, and service is usually pretty good — sometimes the waiters can be a bit standoffish, but no worries!
Make sure you get the spicy broth if you like the heat, but I would suggest scooping out all the herbs first because they get in the way of the actual food and don’t taste good when eaten.
Best items: CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS!!! Taro, watercress, wintermelon. The treasures dessert is also really good — forgot what the actual name was.
Tips for the best sauce mixture: Large scoop of chinese BBQ sauce, scoop of garlic, a little soy sauce, sesame oil, hot chili oil, scoop of sesame sauce, cilantro, scallions, and A RAW EGG — traditional style :)

This place is crazy! This is the first hot-​pot we have been to and were somewhat confused on how to do things. When we asked the waiter what to do, he looked at us like we were the worst people on earth. Very rude staff. We ordered 4 or 5 things on the menu, looked at what the other people were doing in the restaurant, and then figured it out. It is pretty simple to do, but maybe some simple direction would be helpful at first.
Overall, it was an good experience, however the rudeness of the staff was unacceptable

Despite the waiters looking miserable, and the fact that it probably has questionable sanitary issues… it’s a «cheap» hotpot place that gives you a lot, you can have a good time with friends, has unlimited bud (though I never take advantage of this because that’s just too filling) and they have supplement all you can eat xiao long bao’s, and other appetizers/​sides.
At least they have Brisk Iced Tea in the midst of all their generic, America’s Choice soda that they offer.

All You Can Eat Hotpot in Flushing for $ 26.00 including soup dumplings! Like many of the other reviews, choices range from a variety of seafood to meats. While I won’t exactly consider this a foodie destination… it’s worth the $ 26.00 just to get unlimited food. This includes unlimited Budweiser (bleh).
2 Types of Broth —
Raw Meats —
Special thanks to Wing L for organizing a mini outing.