Dinghao Shanghai Bistro

Food arrived late by almost 30 min, taste was mediocre at best, and 4 hours after eating only half of his orange chicken (that was mostly bread without meat) my husband was having explosive vomiting. I had the sizzling beef that was mostly grissle and bland. The one thing they did well was steamed rice but fire 35.00 I could have done that myself.

The New Times article, «10 Best Things I ate in 2015», Volume 46, led me to try Dinghao. The author of the article said that their dish, «sheng jian boa» or steam buns were delicious– broth and pork-​filled buns. Sounded amazing so I headed for Dinghao. Unfortunately, my eating companion doesn’t eat pork so I opted to try other dishes. Here’s what we had:
Green onion pancakes: Arrived so saturated in grease that they glistened from the oil. When I told the waitress I couldn’t eat them because they were too greasy, she went to the back and got me a pile of napkins. Really? She expected me to soak up pancakes that were super saturated in fat? I told her I didn’t want them. She came back a few minutes later with a new batch that looked better but still greasy. I would not order them again.
Vegetable spring rolls: Small, not too greasy with cabbage inside. Not worth the calories.
Schezwan Noodles: We asked if these were like cold sesame noodles and were told yes. A small portion of noodles arrived with a brownish paste and bean sprouts. Not exactly what we expected, didn’t wow us and would not order it again.
Vegetable fried rice: Large portion, with visible pieces of broccoli, peas and carrots. Not very flavorful. A little sesame oil would have made the difference. Would not order it again.
Spicy Shrimp: Generous portion, about 11 shrimp with heads and shells on. Fresh and delicious. At $ 12.95 I thought it was a good value. I would eat this again.
Chicken with Broccoli: My companion tried to get Orange Chicken made with un-​breaded chicken. The waiter insisted that it couldn’t be done which we could not understand considering that Chicken with Broccoli is made with un-​breaded chicken. He settled for chicken with broccoli and asked that it be prepared very, very, very spicy. The waiter said that this dish is not usually spicy but that they would spice it up. I chimed in that he liked it super spicy so not to be afraid to spice it up. Nevertheless, the dish arrived without any spice and on top of that, it was over-​salted.
Enough said. I think you guys get the idea.
Too bad I didn’t try the steam buns during this visit because it definitely will be my last.
’

Not much to look at inside, but this is pretty authentic chinese food. Authentic doesn’t always been high quality though. The food is average, not a competitive edge with tons of other asian food options nearby. However, the Xiao long bao (soup dumplings) were pretty tasty.

Some of the best Chinese food in the Valley. The lunch special I a real value. Traditional and American menu. The green onion pancakes are especially good. This dish is good with a side of the pan fried dumpling sauce for dipping. Double thumbs up for this restaurant

Being a Chinese descendant and have traveled around the world. This is your best bet in AZ or at least in Gilbert/​Mesa/​Chandler area.
The food is excellent and service is great along with its price. Some dishes might be on the saltier side so just remind the server be easy on salt when you order. Love this place

I saw the ad on a Chinese news paper and decided to give it a try. I am glad I did. My husband and I are both very happy with our food. It is clean and food tasted fresh. I love the noodle soup I ordered. It is rice noodle with wine cooked chicken, bone in. I love the taste of the chicken and the soup. The price is very reasonable, too. We are going back soon to try different dishes, but I know I will for sure order the noodle soup again. It is worth the drive even though we are kind of far from the restaurant.

When I approached the restaurant, it appears sketchy. The place is small and dirty. It is a type of restaurant to order food and get out. The service is pretty bad. The only positive side was the braised pork. In my opinion, everything is over pickled and has too much vinegar. It was to a point my mouth was numb. Finally, the worst part is ordering fish fillet with black bean sauce. The result was fish fillet with tofu with pickled sweet and sour sauce. The owner pulled a fast one and talked to the cooks and tried to convince us it has black beans in it. I am pretty sure I know what the difference of black bean sauce. I would NOT recommend this place.

I told myself that I won’t let myself write this review angry but seven hours later, I’m still fuming. I don’t think I can think back to this place feeling any better so let’s get this over with. This is going to be wordy because there will be hella details.
I’ve been wanting to try this place for over half a year now after getting some xiaolongbao [ 小籠包, XLB ] at this other place. So as soon as the waitress sat us down, that’s what I order. I asked her for one order of XLB. Granted, I speak Cantonese and not Mandarin so there might be a *slight* accent but it’s really not that hard to understand but the girl just looked at me blankly and let out a, «Huh? What?» So I spoke up a little clearer and a little slower that, «I would like one order of xiaolongbao… you know, the soup dumplings?» I could tell she was still confused but before I could reiterate, she turns around and bellows loudly to this elderly man that just got done taking down a phone-​in order:
«[surname of the elder gentleman]-师父! 我不懂! 我不懂!» Yes, we got it. You don’t understand. I bet you didn’t anticipate that I can understand EVERYTHING you’re saying.
So the elderly guy comes by with the patience of a saint. Wow, lady-​waitress… an older person than you can understand me yet you can’t? Your English was better than his’ as well. What are they paying you for? Whatever. So we order, he understands perfectly fine, and places that in for us while we browsed the Chinese menu [which we grabbed by ourselves because the waitress thought we were some dumb Americanized-​Asians and gave us the crappy paper menu with junk like General Tszu’s Chicken] and decided on our orders. We ended up originally choosing the Grandmother’s Braised Pork, which we were informed that they ran out so we changed it to the Braised Pork with Preserved Vegetables, and the Fish Filet with Black Beans. The XLBs come out with the vinegar sauce sans ginger. I can overlook this but they forgot our spoons. So we wait and wait and wait for no joke, ten minutes, to get the waitress’ attention so we don’t waste soup from the dumplings because she couldn’t give us a spoon. After our XLBs were pretty cold by that point, I turned around, locked eyes with her, and asked her for spoons. She looks at me like I’m stupid or something for needing a spoon for soup dumplings. You try eating soup with your chopsticks, lady. Step off. I ate those dumplings in a pretty salty mood by that point — XLBs which were okay in flavor, lacking in soup, and weren’t really noteworthy. The other place makes better XLBs.
And then came a beautiful dish of Braised Pork with Preserved Vegetables and a fish dish. The fatty braised pork was rendered to melt-​in-​your-​mouth perfection and that preserved vegetable gave it a nice sour bite. Delicious. Almost as good as how Mama W. makes it. But the fish dish… it had tofu and came in a sweet & sour and spicy sauce. This is definitely not what we ordered. Where’s the black bean sauce? It was another ordeal trying to get the waitress and/​or elderly gentleman’s attention. We got the waitresses who gave the fish dish a dirty look and got the elderly guy… *again.*
Ask Brett B. and Tom D., they know how timid I am when it comes to complaining about something. I would rather suck it up and drink a flat alcoholic beverage for $ 11 than complain but this isn’t what we ordered. So I asked the guy if this was the Fish Fillet with Black Bean which he excitedly repeats back. «Yes… but there aren’t any black beans.» «Yes yes, you order black bean!» he replies enthusiastically. «I know… this isn’t black bean. There’s no beans. We didn’t order this.» So he stares at it, grabs the plate, and whisks it to the kitchen.
I was too busy fuming at this point to eavesdrops but I did hear the kind elderly guy telling the chefs, «没有 black bean» No black bean. Does not have black bean. I hear more chatter and he brings it back and puts it on the table.
«Yes… Yes, there’s black bean.» No there’s not. Where’s the black bean?
«It’s in the sauce…»
I encourage you all to look at the picture I’ve attached and tell me where the hell the black beans are. Google Image it if you will. But a chicken can’t talk to a duck — as is this language barrier between us. So I glare at him, he stares at the wall, walks away, and no one comes by to check on us again. I only saw the rude female one more time to drop off the bill. So I take a tentative bite of the fish dish. Sweet, sour, and spicy with no black bean taste at all. There was also waaay too much vinegar, the fish looked disgusting and was soggy, and most importantly: NOT WHAT I ORDERED DESPITE YOUR CLAIMS OF IT BEING WITH BLACK BEAN.
$ 29.01 on a meal where service was null. I even grabbed my own damn box to package the food to go which sits untouched in the fridge.
I’m so mad.
Come here with a Mandarin speaker so they don’t push you around or don’t come here at all.

I ordered a delivery and when it arrives, the food is all messed up. Even the vinegar is fallen to the other dishes. The taste is just normal and for more excessively, I found they charged me twice with two different amount of dollars. Lol, will never go there or order from them again. :)

Poor Business
I purchased a $ 5 off certificate from
to try this place out. I used their online orsering system which was highly convenience since I work in the area and need it ready quickly. When I got there, they said they were no longer accepting those coupons.
coupons NEVER expire; refusing them is a contractual violation. Plus, they are arguing over 5 freaking dollars and upsetting a new customer. They wouldn’t budge on the discount so I did not take the food. So now they lost a potential repeat customer, wasted food and lost out on the money I would have paid for the meal. That’s an INCREDIBLY STUPID business decision. So, I have no idea how good the food is and I will never find out.

This is a cute little authentic Shanghai and Sichuan based restaurant.
Our family (from Shanghai) has been coming here for years and this is about as authentic as it gets! I would recommend the spongy tofu and peanuts, xiao longbao, rice cakes (patties?) and the garlic a-​Choy. The service is decent, the place is clean, the food comes fast, and the prices are great!

A little dubious coming to small Chinese owned restaurants I was actually surprised by the authenticity of the Shanghai food here! Typical restaurants like these are not the best in décor nor ambience but probably closely resembles that of the crowded Los Angeles inner cities asian-​owned restaurants.
We asked the cook for some recommendations and was recommended the following:
Cold dishes:
— spongy tofu with peanuts. This is an acquired texture for those that are not so adventurous with foods.
— Shanghai style cold simmered duck. Cooked like it was hot this is the cold version of it. Tastes the same but there is an inclination to the cold taste of cooked duck. You just have to try it for the sake of it.
Hot dishes:
— fish filet noodle soup with pickled cabbage = this has a bit of spiciness. Simple noodles with the white fish fillets and pickled cabbage in a spicy-​based broth.
— xiao long bao (steamed buns) = 8 pork filled soup dumplings encased with a thin bun wrap laid on a steamed cabbage to keep its moisture. Dip this in the soy sauce, vinegar and ginger sauce to give it the complete taste. One of my seeking foods to find and devour.
— capsella wonton soup = wow! This is quite delicious due to the translucent wonton with pork meat inside. With each bite the flavors burst throughout. These translucent wontons swim in the seaweed based soup with just enough seasonings to drink the whole bowl of soup — of one wanted to.
I would definitely come back for the capsella wontons and the xiao long bao. And of course, I’m down to try new dishes! Happy eating! :D

I ordered from the Eat24 app as I have a few times before. the delivery time indicated around an hour. At an hour and a half I called. it was «on the way». 5 minutes later they called and clarified my beverage order. Clearly not enroute. Almost two hours from order time the lady arrived and told me they were out if Sprite but had included «something more expensive»…a tiny can if chunky mango juice. Ewwww.
Tardy happens… honesty is a practice.

I’m going to give this restaurant a 5 star so far.
Pros:
— Yummy Mandarin food. Better than Taiwan House in Mesa.
— Portions are reasonable.
— My mom had previously been here and recommended they put in Lazy Susans on their bigger tables. They did it.
— Clean
— Reasonable service
Cons:
— Staff speaks very little English, but you can point.
— It would be nice to have pictures in their menu since they speak little English
— Place is small
— Parking area is awkward, or can be. But I guess that’s because of the location of the restaurant at the end of the strip mall (the north side).
I’m Chinese and it’s hard to find a good Mandarin food place here in the east valley. And it’s not too far from where we are often, so this is good. We ordered the green onion cake, rice cake noodles, Shanghai style noodles, dumplings, a steamed dumpling, and a fish plate.
My Mandarin is broken, so the guy had trouble understanding me and he did not speak Cantonese. But, somehow I was able to convey most of the dishes we wanted until my mom came, who speaks fluently in Mandarin was able to order the rest. The young Chinese man was very introverted, but he was friendly, but not like white person friendly.
So, for an authentic Chinese place, it’s a 5 star. Now, I think they have some things confused on their display of names on their restaurant window front. Everything is Egg Fu Yung or something like that. I don’t know why they put that, as that’s not really a Chinese thing, but a Gringo’s thing. So, they definitely need someone who understands and speaks English well to help them there.
So glad that we came here instead of Tao, because maybe for take out, it’s fine, but if I have to listen to the male owner use swear words and talk nasty to people, that would be just way too much.
Besides, this was my mom’s birthday, and myself, and 2 of my siblings and their families were able to join my mom on her birthday. We ate in a comfortable, quiet atmosphere that was very pleasant. No need to worry about some guy talking loudly and rudely to people.
I will personally be taking my husband and kids here to eat. Communication may be a problem, but I took pictures of the food we ate today, so I can use that.

This place is really good, and affordable came in for the $ 5.50 lunch special and we weren’t disappointed. This place is amazing and has the best hot and sour and egg drop soup I’ve ever had. The mongolian beef and honey mustard chicken were perfect! If you like traditional food you have to come eat at this place!

I really like this restaurant. It was our first time to the restaurant and the boss showed his kindness. We planned to order four dishes, and finally ended up with 6. One of the them was free.
I don’t like the cold dishes, but the hot food is great! I miss the southern Chinese food (especially Shanghai food) for a long time because I came from Shanghai. I am so glad I went there.
And two days after, we went there again.
Sure it will become my first choice later on.

We came at 5:30 on a Tuesday evening and we were the only customers at the time. Our waitress was very attentive and friendly, but spoke very little English. The restaurant is rather small but nicely decorated. It is north of a Walgreens pharmacy and just south of the McDonalds and directly across the street from a Subway and a Tattoo shop on Alma School Rd.
We ordered off of both the regular and the Chinese menu. Started with fried Potstickers, juicy, large and flavorful. Next came Pork Egg Fu Yong which had a nice flavor and lots of pork piled on top but some how was very difficult to cut, and Twice Cooked Pork which had a lot of tender very thin slices of pork, onions, red
hot little peppers, some ginger and other chinese veggies. Although I asked for it to be spicy it had little heat to it. The fortune cookies were quite fresh, sweet and crispy.
I have taken away a star from the food. The very friendly owner/​chef came out to see how we liked the food and with his very broken English promised he would make some wonderful dishes for us next time! We will probably return to try some other menu items.

Reccomended: $ 1 豆浆 (soy bean milk — hot or cold) with 油条 (Chinese fried bread) and 葱油饼 (onion «pancakes») make a fantasic and extremely affordable breakfast. The latter two come out hot, crispy, and flaky, which is absolutley perfect. The «small dish» menu can be a bit difficult to go through as its in Chinese, but there is an abbreviated menu in Enlish as well. There is also the 上海炒年糕 (Shang Hai rice cakes) which comes stir fried with meat. The texture is deliciously chewy and the sauce is flavorful. I always get the 小笼包 xiao long bao which are little dumplings with soup inside. While this is no Din Tai Fung, it doesn’t get much better than this for xlbs in Az. Piping hot in a bamboo steamer, these go best with the ginger and vinegar/​soy sauce. Don’t forget to ask for the sauce as the waiters sometimes forget to bring it out.
Not recommended: 成都凉面 Chengdu cold noodles taste a bit like vingegar peanut butter noodles. Definetly not a fan. Also if you don’t particularly like 麻辣 or Sichuan peppercorns, I’d think twice about ordering spicy dishes here.
Pros: super cheap eats. Reminds me of the causal local eateries in China. Great for brunch. Some good authentic food.
Cons: caters to very Chinese crowds. It maybe intimidating to walk in to Chinese menus in the wall. Additionally, noodle soups tend to be too spicy or salty (though the noodle texture is quite good).

The service ain’t the best — typical and to be expected at an authentic Chinese restaurant. I am Chinese so believe me on this one.
But the food. The food is authentic and really good. We ordered a sautéed green bean dish with fried pork. Noms. We also had XLB (xiao long bao aka steamed pork buns). Finished these suckers. And a spicy Szechuan style fish filet and tofu dish. Really yummy all over white rice!
Oh and also — they have the cutest delivery driver! Say hi to him!

This is the place that I’ve dreamt of for oh-​so long. After the closing of my beloved Jade House, I wondered how any restaurant could ever fill the hole in my heart. Ladies and gentlemen, I am SO glad to announce… that restaurant has come.
… and it’s in the exact same location as Jade House used to be. Seriously. How baller is that.
This place has everything that I love in a Chinese restaurant– decent white-​people Chinese food, an AMAZING array of authentic Chinese food, and a minimum amount of incredulity when a white guy order from the authentic Chinese menu. Seriously– they handed us the regular menu, and when I asked for the actual Chinese menu they barely even so much as batted an eyelash.
The food was PHENOMENAL. Exactly what I would have hoped for. I’ve eaten twice there now, and I can’t wait to order from them again and try new stuff. The authentic menu can be a little imposing since there aren’t too many descriptions for the dishes (everything has an English name, but usually it’s just sort of a guess as to what the dish will actually be like) so I recommend going with someone more experienced if this is your first time as a place like this. But you SHOULD go. Try new things– broaden your horizons, open up your world, and GET DOWN WITH YO’ BAD SELF!!!
Grandma’s Marinated Pork will make your kneecaps clap, by the by.