Shanghai Restaurant

When in Shanghai, do like the Chinese do and order what everyone else is ordering. Get the salt toasted ribs, chef’s special tofu, and beef with asparagus and mushrooms. This is my new favorite chinatown joint.

I’ve been coming to this place for years and it was one of the first Chinese restaurants I visited on bellaire strip. Love their flat wet noodles with beef and Chinese broccoli. Huge dish you can definitely share it. Their is a language barrier. It was hard explaining the waitress what I wanted but besides that food is great. They serve your food pretty fast and it’s not expensive either.

As others have mentioned, don’t expect Shanghai food, its definitely your Cantonese food (love!). Came here for my friend’s wedding rehearsal dinner and the food was great.
Food — I had the birds nest, steak filet, snowpea leaves, seafood with veggies, fried rice. They were all delicious!
Service — Slow at times, because it was a busy Friday night. Limited waitress/​waiters meant, slow service.
Location — In the Diho Square Shopping Center, in the corner, next to the police headquarters on Bellaire Blvd.
Overall, this was a neat find through my friend. I would say the food is good, the place not so much so.

Ok, first off: the name is very deceptive. I came here expecting Shanghai cuisine, but quickly realized it was actually Cantonese food. Either way, I was open to whatever delicious Chinese dishes came my way. However, this restaurant was overall «meh».
Food:
salt and pepper ribs: ⁵⁄₅. Pretty impressive. Again, I am vegetarian, but per others in my group, the meat was cooked to perfection, with the perfect combination of salt and pepper. We loved it so much, we ended up requesting a second order.
stir fried snow pea leaves: ⁴⁄₅. Decent, fresh, a typical chinese-​restaurant staple.
beef chow fun: ²⁄₅. Watered down sauce, with overpowering taste of pepper. My nose cried from all that pepper. The vegetables in the dish were also rock hard.
fried rice: ³⁄₅ nothing special, your typical fried rice from a typical chinese restaurant.
pi-​pa tofu: ³⁄₅. Again, average at best. The skin was over-​fried, and there wasn’t enough sauce. I had the same tofu a couple of days ago at a different restaurant that was a million times better.
tofu and shrimp: ³⁄₅ Bland, mediocre at best.
For the quality of food, this restaurant deserves a 3. However, our service was terrible. Our waitress kept rushing us to place our order. After we placed the order, the food trickled in as slowly as an old woman who is straining to pee. Dissapointing.

After waiting at Confucius for more than 30 minutes I decided to search Unilocal and came across the reviews. We took the chance and let me say this place is just as good if not actually better than Confucius. We had the Cantonese style spare ribs, flat rice beef noodle, mixed seafood pan fried noodles, lobster, chicken in Clay pot, fish dish in onions… all delicious! Definitely coming back to dine again. This place will not disappoint.

I came here by accident, I thought this was the restaurant that had soup dumplings!
They do not, but they have the best fried tofu I have ever tasted!

A friend suggested our group of 6 to go here for Sunday lunch. It was pretty empty, with only two other tables occupied. Décor is your typical old school Chinese restaurant with outdated carpets. Servers were really nice even though they had trouble understanding some English.
We ordered 6 dishes which consisted of the pork and preserved egg congee (we actually ordered another one later), chef special tofu, salt and toasted spareribs, salt and toasted squid, salt and toasted soft shell crab and sautéed watercress because we need at least one vegetable dish haha. One serving of congee wasn’t enough to give everyone one full bowl so we decided to order another since it was only $ 6. I’ve had better preserved egg congee but this one was pretty solid. I don’t think you can go wrong with any chef special tofu unless they make it too crispy/​dry or overly soggy with sauce. So at Shanghai it was pretty good. The salt and toasted spareribs are probably my favorite dish here. If I had known, I would have ordered another one instead of the salt and toasted squid because that wasn’t as good. The squid wasn’t as crispy as I would like and the seasoning wasn’t as flavorful as the spareribs. The salt and toasted soft shell crab was on their special menu and it was pretty good. Definitely better than the squid for sure. Lastly the sautéed watercress had a good amount of garlic in it and wasn’t too oily like other places.
Everything was pretty a-​okay hence my rating of 3 stars. Portions could be a bit bigger but overall a decent place. We ordered the pretty basic Chinese foods so maybe their specialty are their Shanghainese foods.

Some of my friends say this is their favorite Chinese restaurant in houston, but for me it is just about average. I’ve been a few times and haven’t found any one dish that was great. It is mainly just all good. One of my favorites are the salt toasted spareribs.
Atmosphere is not exactly modern, bright or hip, instead it is more old school with older asian servers. Service is actually fairly good though.

I’ve heard a lot of great things about this restaurant and I finally got to try it when I came for my friends sons birthday.
It’s not the greatest looking restaurant, but their service was on point. Very attentive, and they didn’t stop serving us even when our food was all out because usually most restaurants forget about you after you receive the food.
I didn’t get to try all the things I wanted to because it was already pre-​ordered for the party but at least I got to try the two on my list.
–Chef’s Special Tofu — (⁵⁄₅) Breaded soft tofu soaked in gravy like sauce that just melts in your mouth. It was great and I’d order it again!
–Salted Toasted Spareribs — (⁴⁄₅) Salt and pepper ribs are usually my fav! Most places don’t put as much salt and pepper on their salt toasted but the seasoning was on point here. The only down fall was the meat was a little too dry.
–Crab Meat Fish Maw Soup — (⁰⁄₅) Flavorless, adding soy sauce and pepper didn’t help much of it either.
–Salted Fish and Chicken Fried Rice — (⁰⁄₅) I think there was too much salted fish that it made the rice a bit too salty and the fish was too fishy for me.
–Steamed Whole Fish — (¹⁄₅) The fish was also too fishy and the marinating was overpowered with the ginger. The fish was tender though, but beware of the small bones! (I almost choked on one =X)
–Sauteed Fresh Veg. with Garlic — (⁵⁄₅) Yummy, any veggies that are sautéed with garlic is always good! Fresh and crunchy!
–Shrimp and Fried Eggs — (¹⁄₅) Very simple, fried scrambled eggs and I think it was boiled shrimp, there was much flavoring to it. I could make it myself.
–Walnut Shrimp w/​Mayo — (²⁄₅) The shrimp wasn’t as battered as it usually should be and the mayo tasted more sweet that I usually like it. I prefer Sinh Sinh’s walnut shrimp =/​
I still had a good experience and I got to try a variety of things, thank god for a group of people to finish off everything or the things I didn’t enjoy much. Haha. I can’t wait to try other items on the menu next time!

Overall good Chinese restaurant service. Aka some servers have language gap but the food is on point and they make up for any typical server interaction with responsive service.
Goat meat clay pot: 3 of 5. This is good for a restaurant clay pot dish. The Goat meat was a little rushed so it was a little over cooked. Otherwise, okay compared to home cooked clay pot. The skin was seared, the Chinese herbs added flavor, and whatever magic they did, tasted exactly how I expected Chinese clay pot should. Expect a gamey taste since its Goat. Little spendy for $ 17.
House Special Tofu: 4 of 5. Amazing soft tofu balls mixed with some other meat (fish?) with another denser tofu covered around it and fried. This was a surprise to me, I love soft tofu and they made it savory without resorting to egg tofu. This dish was a lot, bring 4 people so everyone gets their taste.
2 Mushroom Surprise and Vegetable: 4 of 5. This is a vegetable dish so expect this to compliment the rest of your meal and add some fiber to your diet. The surprise is Enoki and button mushrooms over Chinese broccoli.
Décor is very dated.

So I ended up here on accident as I was looking for another shanghai restaurant which was down the road (thank you GPS). I was in search of dumplings, so if you’re looking for dumpling then this is not the place. There are a few Unilocal pics that claim that this place serves dumpling but they don’t. Instead I got the dumpling soup and some stir fry beef (see pics). The food seems authentic, tasty and the service is surprisingly good.

The food is not Shanghai food. It is more Cantonese style. The dishes ordered didn’t taste bad. We would go again.

I was here this past June 2015. My mom’s friend has invited my mom and I to this restaurant. This seems to be more Cantonese restaurant. The food here are great. They must’ve ordered 9 to 11 different dishes here and they were all great. Sorry I didn’t take any pictures but you know how Asian families are. They will order more than enough than not enough dishes. Considering we had a table of 7 people there. Overall I would come back here if I had the chance.

This place is called Shanghai in English, but it really serves Cantonese food. Nevertheless, it’s dishes are delicious, authentic, and definitely worth a try. The waitstaff is very friendly and chatty as well.
My family of three ordered five dishes and got a complimentary pork bone soup. The complimentary soup was light but flavorful, with generous chunks of tender rib meat and some pearl badly within. We also got pork and preserved egg congee, fried pork ribs, roast duck, eggplant, and fried shrimp balls. The congee was fairly good. It would have been amazing, but the chunks of preserved egg were too large and too hard. The fried ribs were fantastic, crunchy and garlicky on the outside and juicy on the inside. The roast duck was probably my favorite out of all the dishes, super tender and with a nice, flavorful, and lightly crunchy skin. There was also an orange sauce for filling that complimented the juicy duck perfectly. The eggplant was well cooked, flavorful, and tender. The shrimp balls were pretty good as well, with a shatteringly crisp tempura crust on the outside.
All the dishes were well executed, and my family left full and satisfied. If you’re looking for authentic Canto food, this is your place!

Went here for lunch with a few coworkers. I ordered the:
— Chicken & salted fish fried rice. Great flavor, a bit too much salted fish. but overall, a Solid Dish.
— Chef’s Special Tofu (Pipa Tofu). This was okay; very crispy outside and soft inside. The sauce could have more flavor though.
— Snow Pea Leaves with Garlic. Amazing! it’s a simple stir fry dish but they executed it very well. I’m not sure if they should charge $ 13.95 for it, though.
— Spicy Salted Spare Ribs. they fried it very crispy; with scallion/​garlic/​chili. Great flavor, but slightly overcooked — the meat was a tad dry.
Overall, a pretty okay place. However, service was HORRIBLE. The ladies that worked there were just not in a happy mood. I know this is Chinatown, but still, a little smile would help a long way. With this level of service, it doesn’t surprise me that the place is pretty quiet during lunch time.

This is my go-​to place for various tasteful dishes especially Sinagpore style noodle and salted toasted pork or short ribs. The menu covers many dishes and I believe it’s Cantonese style of cooking and shouldn’t disappoint unless you are way picky. The staff is friendly attentive and that speaks volumes. Give a try.

Must try: *been eating here more than 15 yrs so this is going to be a long list*
–Beef chow fun with Chinese broccoli (flat Rice noodles, has sauce)
–Princess chicken with ginger sauce on side (comes in half or whole chicken)
–Goat meat claypot with fermented bean curd sauce
–Deep fried whole flounder with sauce for dipping (yes you can eat the smaller bones, they’re crispy and delicious)
–Clams with black bean sauce
–Clams with basil sauce
–Salt and pepper Dungeness crab or lobster
–Congees: pork and thousand year egg; seafood
–Salt and pepper pork ribs
–Salt and pepper shrimp
–Pei pa tofu
–Stir fried veggies with garlic (baby bok Choi or snow pea leaves)
–Stuffed trio: eggplant/​tofu/​bitter Mellon Stuffed with deep fried shrimp paste
–Walnut shrimp with mayo
–Shrimp Stuffed tofu
–Stir fried fish fillets with golden chives (limited time, not sure if its still on menu)
–Pan fried egg noodles with Beef or seafood
–Lo mein with pork feet, soup on side
Whew!
If you want to experience Cantonese Chinese food, come here and order any of the items above. I have not been here during lunch before, but their dinner is consistently delicious, whether dining in or takeout. I’ve been dining here with my family and many other patrons when they still had the small «house» location and have had many family dinners when they moved to the Diho Square shopping center. I’m impressed by how consistent and excellent the dishes are, authentic Cantonese flavors and lots of «wokness». Every Chinese restaurant has an open flame range with a wok, but only the best restaurants transfer the wonderful flavors, heat, and smoke of the wok through to their dishes. If you’re looking for authentic Cantonese food (not your kung pao chicken) then come here and be amazed. If you’re Chinese and living in Houston and have not been here, shame on you! J/​k :)
Must mention that they do not have tanks of live swimming seafood visible. However, what their chef can do with poultry and the seafood dishes mentioned above is pure magic. Their sauces are also very addictive!
If you need a table for 8 – 10 people, definitely call a day or two ahead and request a reservation. They also have 3 private rooms with sliding walls that accompany your party reservation. Service is great but it can get packed during peak times so I’ve done takeout, equally delicious.

Came here on a Sunday evening and was greeted by a very happy Chinese lady. Something you don’t see often in Chinese restaurants around here! The place was decently packed with large tables all around, so the restaurant seemed to cater more towards family-​style dinners.
We ordered the clams, sizzling beef with eggplant, and chef’s chicken. The clams were fresh and very tasty. The beef was very tender, but a bit oily for my taste. This was balanced out by the chicken which was actually served cold. The meal also came with a complementary soup which had bits of meat and bone in it.
All in all, well worth the visit and I will be back!

If you want a solid authentic Chinese meal, you can’t go wrong with Shanghai Restaurant! Located in the Welcome Food Plaza, Shanghai Restaurant has been one of Houston Chinatown’s staple restaurants, and it is for a reason. This restaurant is about as classic as you can get with a Houston Chinatown diner: Reasonably priced but delicious food that greatly compensates the nothing-​to-​rave-​about service and atmosphere.
Shanghai Restaurant’s menu encompasses almost anything you can think in the Chinese cuisine, ranging from rice to noodle and from meat to vegetable. I can’t vouch for every dish on the menu, but I can say that you probably will not be disappointed with the taste no matter which dishes you choose!
If you do find yourself overwhelmed by the choices, feel free to ask the servers, which are one of Houston Chinatown’s friendliest (Not exactly a high standard, but you will be treated at least as an equal here). My recommendations are the chef’s special tofu (pipa tofu) and the restaurant’s signature salted spare ribs.
Chef’s special tofu is fried fish-​minced tofu (Sorry vegetarians!) drizzled with gravy. Don’t let this squirmish description deter you from getting it, because this dish will change what you thought about tofu! Whether you complemented with rice or ate it individually, chef’s special tofu will give you a delicious flavorful experience in a slightly crispy shell and firm texture. chef’s special tofu is the ultimate tofu dish that you cannot miss, and Shanghai Restaurant does a great job creating this dish!
Anyway, tl;dr this restaurant is great especially if you want Chinese food. You won’t be disappointed so try this place out! Yay salted spare ribs and chef’s special tofu!

While my hankering typically leans towards taquerias. Lately, I’ve been craving soup dumplings aka xiao long bao. If you’ve never had these unique dumplings put them on your list. You see, these little bundles of joy aren’t what you expect. The soup is actually on the inside of this small little purse-​shaped bun. Also inside, you’ll find a little Asian pork meatball full of flavors like scallion, ginger and sesame oil.
I have been honored to experience the best of these at Joe’s Shanghai in NYC’s Chinatown where they are full of soup and raging with flavor. When I stumbled upon them in Dallas at Yao Fuzi I was thrilled. Although they didn’t hold a candle to Joe’s at least I could get my fix! I have also tried them at Royal China (eh) and next on my list (and supposedly the BEST in all of Texas) are the soup dumplings at Jeng Chi.
While in Houston recently, I hit up Shanghai Restaurant based on fellow Unilocalers’ trusted reviews. They didn’t disappoint. Best I’ve had in Texas so far (the verdict is still out for Jeng Chi remember). This restaurant may be located in the sketchier section of Houston but I’d make the trip again in a NY minute. They were larger then most dumplings and contained a decent amount of the soup. They didn’t seem to break easily prior to getting them to the famous flat-​bottomed dumpling spoon either. Sorry to say we didn’t have other food there, just ate our weight in dumplings but the price was right on and these hit the spot! Great food on a cold, rainy day!
Other noteworthy info:
Service– nothing amazing but not lacking either.
Ambiance– extremely casual, kinda dive, typically décor-​lacking space found at most Chinese restaurants.
Bathrooms– hmmm perhaps go before you leave home.