New Shanghai Restaurant

Friendly, But Can’t Get Past the Food. =(
The food was mediocre at best. Garlic chicken didn’t have the slightest inkling of garlic (perhaps a fluke?), water chestnuts tasted bad (not right), and chow mein was weak. The next time we were craving Chinese food, we all felt a little queasy at the thought of this place. The service was friendly and we really wanted to like it. Bummer.

I should have read all the reviews instead of just looking at the stars.
My co worker and I ordered pick up. She ordered the chicken chowmein lunch special and I ordered the orange peel chicken lunch special. Both were really, REALLY sweet. The «fried rice» that came with the special was basically rice and soysauce, no vegetables, no meat. The eggroll was nasty.
I will not be returning, and i do not recommend this place.

Everything tastes either bland or sweet. I asked for my kung pao to be extra spicy and it just came out as extra sweet. There are only a handful of things that are on the plus side — delivery and close to my work.

Not coming back, food is greasy, nothing special for the price. Ordered assorted vegetable-​bland in taste, egg soup-​not so good the after taste was weird, orange chicken– soo NOT good… smelled funny and tasted funny. Appetizers all had a similar after taste, assuming they don’t change their oil on deep fryers cuz it was yucky! I don’t personally recommend this place to anyone.

Horrible food! Every dish tastes the same and has a greasy after taste. Don’t waste your money to eat here

My brother recently moved to this area, so we picked up takeout from here and took it to his house for dinner. Called in the order at 6:30, was told it would take 30 minutes. Got there at 7:00, had to wait about 10 minutes until it was ready. The price was $ 55, which was good considering how much food we ordered. They threw in a free order of egg drop soup to compensate for the wait time, which I thought was nice.
Egg Drop Soup — Seriously had no flavor. I added soy sauce and it still didn’t help. I see why they give it away for free.
Egg Rolls — Really hard, seemed old. Had an odd anise flavor to them. I tried dipping it in their sweet and sour sauce, but all that tasted like was sweet syrup.
Cream Cheese Wontons — A-​OK. Literally just cream cheese in them, no other spices or filling.
Kung Pao Chicken — Decent flavor, but not spicy at all.
House Special Chicken — Pretty good sauce, but missing something. Kind of bland.
Mongolian Beef — Again, A-​OK, but bland. Also, way too many filler rice sticks.
Pan Fried Noodles — These were good! But the portion was very small, there was barely enough for three of us.
I ended up putting hot sauce on all the food for added flavor. The quality of all of the meat was good. The shrimp in the pan fried noodles was super fishy though, I would skip on the seafood here. If we get Chinese near his house again, we will try a different place.

I have eaten at this establishment 5 times now and the food is excellent. I recommend it to all you Chinese food lovers! Always fresh and very good service!

I had lunch here, but Too sweet!!! Not good for Japanese and Chinese.

Average Chinese food, inexpensive and good portions, nothing really was outstanding, there are lot of choices in the area and this is not one of the best ones unfortunately. The hot and sour soup was watered down, the fried rice was rice with lots of soy sauce, nothing else, the beef dish was OK, and shrimp dish had small-​overcooked shrimp.

Originally ordered from here because they deliver. The good was really. The fried rice and lo mein are delicious. Mongolian beef and the garlic chicken was very tasty. Will go back without a doubt.

I am always pleasantly pleased with the service and food at New Shanghai! The food always tastes great and they have a large menu to choose from. We live nearby and usually get delivery which is always on time and fresh. I don’t think I’ve tried anything on their menu so far that I haven’t enjoyed! The service here is always friendly. They even sent us a little gift of Jasmine tea when we ordered a delivery around Christmas! If you want a tasty casual dinner I would definitely recommend New Shanghai.

The people couldn’t be nicer but the food could be more interesting. Just average Chinese food. We moved here 2 years ago and keep searching for a chinese restaurant that really pleases us.

We love New Shanghai! We’ve been coming here for a few years now, based on a friends recommendation. She claims its East Coast Chinese food. All I know is it’s straight up delicious!
I recommend the house chicken, it’s so flavorful! We rarely branch out and mainly stick with Mongolian beef and cream cheese wontons, both are delicious! We’ve had the sweet and sour chicken and pork, both are good flavor wise, but the sauce is a little thick for my liking.
We love the gals here! They are super friendly, and always know it’s us from what we order. Give it a shot, I know you’ll like it!

What a terrible attempt at Chinese food! I’m sorry ahead of time to most of my fellow Unilocalers, who wrote (anything more than 2 stars) reviews for this place… But, «What moon are some of you from»??
There is no taste to the food and it is either undercooked or overcooked.
Pu Pu Platter…(1.) The beef skewers were like some old pieces of meat, that have been hanging in the shed… and drying out for days on end. (2.) Fried shrimp… just a hollowed out, over fried stick of cardboard.
(3.) Chicken drumsticks… bit into both and were cold! Who puts breaded chicken drumsticks on a Pu Pu Platter anyway??? (4.) Paperwrapped chicken… just tasted funky and old.
«And» #5…that’s suppose to be the best part! The ever so sweet RIBS! Tasted liked they they had been reheated & reheated over and over, with sauce slapped on them just before serving them to us.
Egg Drop Soup… Tasted good «but» who puts Tofu in it???
Vegetable Chow Mein… You would think it would have plenty of vegetables in it? «Wrong»! 2 pieces of broccoli and 2 slices of mushroom and a couple of slivers of cabbage. The noodles were «thick type» soft spaghetti noodles.
The service was good and the lady was nice! But, remember… there is A Reason It’s So Cheap!!!
Will not be coming back!!! «Just Sad»!

Still yummy, clean, fresh and high value. A lot of food for the price and really friendly folks running the place. I’m always pleased with most things I’ve ordered.
Mongolian beef
Egg fried rice
Shrimp chow mein
Foil wrapped chicken
Fried wontons
Pot stickers
And our favorite caramel fried apples

Was mad craving some General Tso chicken, so I decided to look up some nearby Chinese restaurants. New Shanghai Restaurant was the only place open, and I’d never tried it before so I decided to give it a shot. This was a pick-​up order.
I got the Orange Peel Chicken and the General Tso, but did not share with the lady on the phone that I would be indulging in her fine dining alone (more for me, I say). She was kind enough to notify me that neither of my entrees contained any veggies (if I wanted veggies I’d go to Sprouts, am I right?), and that my entrée came with free white rice (SCORE).
I was told the food would be ready in 20 minutes, so of course I took my time leaving the house until JUST before (not sure why, I live a good distance from the restaurant — poor planning on my part). Luckily, it was an easy location to find, albeit a little on the subtle side with its outside décor.
I make my way in. It’s completely dead inside, not even the staff are there. «Awesome,» I think, «no line.» The lady comes out from the kitchen and asks me for the secret code (what’s my phone number?), which I thought was smart considering there were so many people waiting for their food. Didn’t want any mix-​ups. She seemed like a nice woman, so I felt I could share with her that I’d be eating alone. She laughed. A little too much.
Anyway, the Orange chicken was «meh» (had a doughy consistency, tasted a little «off», or pork… can’t say for sure), but the General Tso was pretty bomb dot com — I really enjoyed the bits of pineapple. I’m excited to try some of their other entrees in the near future.

Just wanna point out that this place feels like the local Chinese restaurant back home. This is the type of cooking I enjoy at these types of places. Great deals, good portions, not too overwhelming as far as flavor but I prefer it that way haha.
Friendly staff and service and they seem to know the locals here pretty well. It’s more old school designed with the light colors and stuff, I prefer it that way as well since it makes things feel chill. This is the type of place my family likes to come to on Sunday’s after the rest of the week has finished and we want to just sit, relax, have casual conversation and enjoy a good soup and several entrees to choose from.
Thumbs up for you guys yo!

Straight up admitting that I’m being kind in my 3 stars for New Shanghai Restaurant as I would not go back again.
The food was fine, but that’s about it. Nothing tasted good, let alone great, it was all just so-​so. Interestingly, the quality of the meats was actually higher-​end, cooked properly, not fatty or tough, etc., but unfortunately every dish lacked flavor and oomph!
Service was friendly and accommodating and they wanted to please.
The prices are very reasonable, so if you like your Chinese really bland and cheap, then this might be the spot for you.
I did like that they give a large portion of rice, so you don’t have to ask for more.
I also liked that tea was included. Unfortunately, the tea was lacking just like the food. Was I drinking sugared water?
New Shanghai is not only not «new» they are totally kickin it old school! Aside from the paper zodiac placemats (
) the requisite fish tank was there, along with old pink booths, carpet and flooring that might have been from the 80’s, and I love the 80’s.
So to sum it up, I wish I could give this small and happy-​friendly, clearly family run business more stars and more of my business, but I cannot.

This was supposed to be «Bookmark Saturday» night, but after a long walk around University Center, neither the better half or I were in the mood to drive and my lovely wife was craving Chinese. Turn to the Unilocal app and New Shanghai (
) fit the criteria for being Chinese and close to home.
Walking in I felt like I had just done the Time Warp (
) and I was waiting for Riff-​Raff, Magenta and Columbia to come out of the kitchen and break out into course. If this was the «new» Shanghai Restaurant, I really don’t want to know what the old one looked like.
Rohlinism: If you are going to use new in your business name, your business should look new!
Even though it was only a half an hour to closing when we arrived, the owner didn’t bat an eye and we were immediately seated, handed menus and hot tea was delivered. Unfortunately, the tea had no flavor and even my lovely wife’s effort to sweeten hers just left her with a cup on warm sugar water. A short time later a bowl of crispy Chow Mein Noodles (
) were delivered with the usual accompaniment of Sweet and Sour and Hot Mustard sauces. The sweet and sour was kind of an odd color and it was all sweet and no sour. Not bad, just not a traditional sweet and sour. On the other hand, the hot mustard was spot on and a small amount cleared Laina’s sinuses for the evening.
The one thing this place does have going for it is in addition to the décor being trapped in a time warp, the prices were too! The Lunch Specials range from $ 6 to just over $ 7 and comes with your choice of soup or salad, fried won ton, egg roll and rice. Most of the dinner entrees were only slightly more expensive and the portions were more than filling.
My better decided to go with the House Special Beef (
), I chose the Crispy Duck (
) and we opted for an order of the BBQ Pork Chow Mein (
) to share.
The food came out relatively fast, but it was a bit underwhelming. The sauce for the chow mein was understated to the point of non-​existence. The pork was decent quality and quantity, the noodles were cooked well, but it was just a very boring dish. The same can be said for the house special. It was a good portion and the meat was tender, but the sauce was almost lacking any flavor. I don’t think either dish was horrible, just needing some seasoning to pick them up.
The crispy duck wasn’t crispy at all. It definitely had not spent enough time in the pan and the fat hadn’t been properly rendered. The fat did supply a nice flavor, but my wife doesn’t eat fat, so finding her pieces to try was difficult. The hoisin sauce was very sweet (sugar based), but was lacking the garlic flavor and heat of a more traditional hoisin sauce. Laina liked it better than I did and actually used it on her house beef. The only real plus was the restaurant provides a large pot of rice, so we didn’t have to stop eating to ask for more rice.
The service was friendly and we were checked on several times during the meal. The meal ended on kind of a good note when the check came. I really should have taken a picture of it, because it was worth a good chuckle. Our bill had three Chinese symbols on it and the total price … no cost of each item, no subtotal, no tax, no kidding!
I really can’t see myself doing this time warp again!

This is your basic American Chinese restaurant, for OC that is. As we walked in for dinner we saw several Asians come in to pick up take out. That’s a good sign!
It is not a fancy restaurant, but it is clean. The service was very good, we had a hostess (who I think is an owner) seat us and then we were serviced by both she and another employee. Quick service, no complaints whatsoever.
There was only one other party seated for dinner when we came in but another large party came in right after us so on a Thursday night it wasn’t bad at all.
Now for the food: the table tea was meh, and when you order a meal you can (for an additional $ 3) make it a «complete» meal which means they add a Dorito-​looking chip square, a foil wrapped have-no-idea-what-it-is-but-it’s-okay, some slimy eggflower soup and a pretty good eggroll. I do not feel this made it a complete meal to my standard but hey whatevs.
We noshed on those and the tableside won tons — they brought a very weird colored sweet n sour sauce and mustard to eat it with so I asked for ketchup. Yes, I’m American. We polished them off and they brought our entrees: house special beef and orange chicken.
My house special beef was nothing short of AMAZING. I have ordered this in fancier way more expensive places and it wasn’t half as good: tender, flavorful, and I devoured it. The menu says it is spicy, it’s not so don’t worry if you can barely tolerate Sriracha, this will be okay for you. My husband on the other hand, received an interesting looking meal. He asked if this was orange chicken because he wasn’t sure he had received the correct item and was assured that was it. I had to try it, and it was everything my meal wasn’t: dry, crunchy, did not taste much like orange and it was in very small pieces. He did not finish his dinner and I didn’t blame him.
When we were done we were brought an interesting dessert which tasted good but I still have no idea what it was! LOL. And the traditional fortune cookie. Damage? $ 26 and we drank water so it was expensive for what we got and did not measure up. If my meal hadn’t been so delicious I would have rated this place lower but I can’t say enough good things about the house special beef and the service was excellent. The sad part is, I live in Lake Forest and since moving here from Huntington Beach I have yet to find good chinese in the area so if anyone has suggestions I’m happy to hear them!