Shanghailander Palace

I do not want to give any stars! I want to give them negative stars!!! They provided a very poor service and they don’t even care about their customers. Also, their cashier added the tip by themselves and asked you to pay for it. WTF!!! I want to give the tip whatever I feel comfortable with and I want to decide by myself, not you! and I don’t think the poor service deserved to earn 20% tip on the total amount in the lunch when there is no wine ordered. I strongly recommend my friends do not come to that place!!! I will never come back again!!!

We ordered the set meal that was supposed to come with birds nest dessert (which explains the price) but they sneakily substituted with some rice ball dessert! We asked about it and then they admitted they ran out! It’s ok to run out of ingredients but don’t mislead your guests into paying for something that will not be served! This is dishonest practice and fellow foodies need to know about it!

Not a very honest business owner ! Ordered $ 888 set but they didn’t provide the quality of the food and try to cheat w/​low quality dishes without telling us till we found out !! Got Shanghai-​ed on Chinese New Year. Gonna tell Mr. Trump!

Very very very poor service!!!
I do not want to give any star ‚
recommend my friends do not go there!!!
They don’t care what the guests in their restaurant lost! Sux service and food!!!

Solid food, sea cucumber was awesome，duck was slightly old, probably just that duck rather the cooking. Big fat pork fall off bones, delicious. The lotus appetizer was interesting, wish it was more crunchy. The only downside were huge line, we’re lucky they let us made reservation.

It’s the start of a new year and one of my goals is to post a review a day, so here’s to kick off 2016!
Review: ¹⁄₃₆₅
My parents and I came here for New Year’s Day dinner. My mom was the one who picked the place, complimenting how authentic the food is, and how different, and how much better it is than the Chinese food in Cerritos (where they live)…and as Moms usually are, she was right.
In cities with Chinese restaurants in every corner, you can typically judge how good a place is based on how long the line is. There was definitely a long line here. We were originally told that the wait would be 40+ min long, but the service was so efficient that we probably waited 15 minutes at most (there were also 5 families ahead of us too!)
For 3 people, we definitely ordered lots and doggy bagged lots. We ordered 8 dishes: Rice with salted pork and boy choy, pan fried pork buns, garlic sauteed vegetables, some bean curb dish, fried fish filet with seaweed, cucumber rolls w/​peanut sauce, lotus stuffed with sticky rice, and pork belly in brown sauce.
Stand outs:
Fried Fish Filets w/​Seaweed: Ask any of my friends, they would tell you that I don’t like fried fish. I don’t understand fried fish. I don’t understand why people in England love fish and chips… but, I love this fried fish. The fish comes to you piping hot. When you bite into it, you hear the crunch of the batter, the saltiness from the salt and pepper dip hits your tongue, then comes the light aroma of the seaweed batter, and then that fresh flaky fish. Mmm… so good. The batter is just right– not too thick and not too thin. Perfect. This is a must get.
Cucumber Rolls w/​Peanut Sauce
This is a cold dish. Who knew slices of cucumber rolled w/​mint and lettuce leaves could be this good. It’s cool, refreshing, and a great way to kick off a meal!
So those were my stand out dishes, though I will admit, everything we ordered was good! I think my least favorite would be the pork belly in brown sauce. It’s just a bit too heavy and salty for my liking– but my mom said that’s what the Shanghainese like to eat!
Anyways, I’m a fan. Check it out!

If you like Authentic Shanghaiese food with a very reasonable price, then this is your place to go! And the only place around Rowland Heights.
I go at least once a month. I’ve been to other Shanghaiese restaurants, wether too pricy or not authentic. They offer some really traditional Shanghaiese style food which requires quite a bit process, not those Soy Sauce sautéed dishes.
My recommendation :
Must try for Non-​Chinese: Shanghaiese shrimp, steamed dumpling, beef cube, lamb with pancake, seaweed fired fish filet .
Must try for Chinese: smoke fish, Drunk chicken, drunk crab, Shanghaiese style pork, meatball soup.

Hubs recommended this place as had lunch here with some business associates.
Came here tonight and it was a packed house. I could tell right away this place was authentic when I hear people slurring their Mandarin left and right.
We don’t usually wait but since there was no parking and it was bone chilling cold out, didn’t want to go back out in the cold. So we waited 30 min. Hubs assured us it’d be worth the wait. It was.
We had many of their specialty items: Braised pork (amazing), xiao long bao (tasty), crab roe in Napa cabbage vermicelli soup, shrimp stuffed eggplant, vegetable rice in clay pot, drunken chicken. Everything was great (good wise).
Service was okay, nothing great.

You think Unilocalers are hard to please? Try pleasing an old Chinese granny. Then, try pleasing a GROUP of old Chinese grannies. If you can, you’re probably quite close to perfect.
That’s exactly what Shanghailander Palace did. I once walked in during lunch to TWO FULL TABLES of old Chinese grannies who have decided that this is the place in 626 they want to brunch with their besties. Quite a telling sign of how authentic the food is.
There are 7 lunch special combos to pick from, each for $ 9.88. My favorite is #1, which comes with Shanghai style braised pork in brown sauce with Shanghainese fried rice. The «Dong Po Rou» perfectly melts in your mouth, not too salty and not too bland.
As a «soupie» (a… soup groupie?), I always have to order the braised minced meat ball with crab roe pot ($ 13.99). It comes with a few meat balls, vermicelli, wood ear, mushrooms, and napa cabbage. It tastes like it has been stewing for ages, with every sip of soup bursting with flavor (I’m drooling). While the crab roe flavor is not strong, the meat ball is still a treat. This soup does take about 25 mins to prepare, so either order it right when you sit down, or make sure you have plenty of time to enjoy.
Finally, my ever-​so-​picky-​gramma has decided that this is one of her favorites, which works for me, because it’s slowly becoming one of mine as well!
Tips:
— Order 2 combos and get XLB for $ 5.99. However, the XLB was not my favorite, as the skin is too thick and not delicate enough.
— Tea is NOT complimentary. A regular pot (like the stuff you get at most Chinese restaurants) is $ 1, while the fancier stuff (like chrysanthemum) is $ 3.50. Refills included.

I almost always hate eating Shanghainese food but Shanghailander Palace (despite it’s funny name) was pretty good. The décor was great, it almost didn’t feel like a chinese restaurant. The service was friendly. And the food (although small in portions) were all tasty and I wouldn’t be opposed to coming back.
If you’re into Shanghainese food, check it out. If you aren’t you should still check it out since even I thought it was good.

This place is my mom’s restaurant of choice. I don’t even want to mention how many times I’ve been here. I’m not a big fan of the design with those heavy double doors, or the sporadic service which involves raising and waving my hands undetected at times. But I do admit the food is good. And some dishes are really good. I can’t comment on pricing, as I don’t have a base to compare to but I believe they veer towards the pricy. Here are some of my favorite dishes.
Shanghailander Style Braised Pork (Hong Shao Rou) — greasy deliciousness, excellent with rice
Deep Fried Crispy Fish Fillet with Seaweed — so crispy, hints of seaweed, tender fish filets
Ching Chiang Cured Pork — frozen rectangular cubes of pork, actually yummy
Old Style Salted Whole Crab ($ 18) — $$ for a small raw marinated blue crab but pretty darn good
Steamed Juicy Meat Buns — good for what is
Shanghai Style Pan Fried Noodle — i just like it
Oh, and I told my friend to eat with my family here in Shanghailander. And he showed up in Shanghai No 1. True story.

I used to love coming to this restaurant but the quality has diminished and service has drastically gone worse.
First of all, I drove 45 min here from Irvine and I was excited to eat my favorite dishes. I ordered the beef cubelets, xiaolongbao, another pork bun, and saomai.
I asked for their special chicken sauce because I loved dipping my xiaolongbao in that sauce. The waiter was so rude. He asked why I needed that sauce for?
I mean, why can’t I ask for sauces? I told him I just liked the sauce and he looked at me and walked away. I didn’t think he was gonna give me the sauce since it didn’t come after my dishes all came out so I asked a different server for it.
Furthermore, they gave me a fish and shrimp xiaolongbao and I expected a pork xiaolongbao. I asked the server if the dish was wrong because It didn’t taste like the old ones I have tried and the female server gave me the most dirtiest look and told me it’s the same thing and what’s the difference. I told her there’s shrimp in this one and if there’s other types of xiaolongbao and she said no and told me she can take it away if I don’t like it. I tried remaining as polite as possible yet she startled me with her rude attitude. She took away my dish without me even answering or saying to take it away and she didn’t say she was replacing it.
That was not the rudest part of the experience. When I asked for the check, they signaled me to get it up in front. Are you serious??? This is just ridiculous. And I didn’t get greeted on the way out.
I don’t understand how restaurants can hire such rude servers where customer service should be the main objective. I am thoroughly disappointed and will not be coming back here unless they have better servers.

First off there were flies in the restaurant and during our meal one could not leave any of our food or our bodies alone and we had to kill one during our meal. How appetizing.
The front of the house is not very friendly and all look like they hate working. It’s no a huge deal since I understand working at an Asian restaurant but they should smile sometimes to customers and not while they’re chatting away.
The food is pretty but not delicious, some are inaccurate from pictures like the braised pot with crab roe.
The lotus stuffed with sweet rice is very small and undercooked itself and the sticky rice wasn’t fly cooked making the texture combination not pleasing to the mouth and unappetizing.
The old stewed duck was also not good since the sauce had barely any flavor and the meat was cooked and frozen afterwards affecting the texture of the duck itself making it almost the same as anything vegan and tofu substitutes.
The smoked fish was cut too thick in which the flavor of their sauces couldn’t enter the meats flavor itself and the taste was also VERY unappetizing, I could barely finish my one chunk of fish.
The fried larval fish was very oily and the oil flavor masked the flavor of the sauce tremendously.
The Ching chiang cured pork was alright, it was presented beautifully.
The braised pot with crab roe tasted the best with good flavors however the presentation lacked quality.
The servers are very nice but also VERY UNATTENTIVE. There were about five parties in the entire restaurant and get all I see are cashiers chatting away by the bar and no service to come and welcome us or take our orders.
The presentation of the restaurant is nice though and displays a lot of Shanghai photographs displaying the city.
OVERALL I would not recommend this restaurant since you could spend your money elsewhere and be happy or at least satisfied with your meal.

Seems like the quality of service has decreased overall since its opening a few years ago — a true shame, as their braised pork belly (hong shao rou; 红烧肉) was and still is truly stellar. Portions have also decreased significantly while the inflated prices remain high. The restaurant is still clean and upscale by Chinese restaurant standards. However, the service has not only been consistently unattentive/​negligent, but just downright rude. Almost every visit, our servers (primarily, the male ones) look and act like they’re severely hung over. We have to ask for every little bit of service; tea refills, clearing dishes, etc… even when the restaurant only has 5 tables of diners! WHAT IS THAT. Example from our family’s (and family friends’) final visit to this restaurant:
Our large group of 10-​ish had a reservation for a Friday lunch. Upon arrival, they were not prepared and had us wait in the foyer while they set up. Fine. No big deal, we didn’t have anywhere to be. Apparently they had done some (sloppy) cleaning of the restaurant prior because the foyer just reeked of chemical solution. Our party decided to prop one main entrance door open so we wouldn’t get a secondhand chemical high and pass out. A staff member walked over and closed the door. So we asked if we could leave it open because of the smell. He curtly replied, «Whether the door is open or closed is not your concern, nor your decision to make.» And then he walked off. Mic drop. Jaws drop.
And then we left, and took our money to another restaurant where the staff actually didn’t have nail bombs shoved so far up their butt holes they transmitted tetanus out their mouths.

I only come here if I have no choice… lol because family friends what to come here or else never shall I step foot in this restaurant.
Firstly, service was grade a TERRIBLE!!! Super unprofessional? Like where did you hire all these people? They have this IDGAF face on and attitude. It was like super duper über SLOW lol… But they were super fast at taking the check and my credit card tho! LOL –_​_​-​«
Secondly, the food was alright, nothing spectacular like OMG that was so delish I have to come back sorta thing. I have to say the only thing memorable was the shanghai ribs… well direct translation from chinese that is. Another then that was decent was their pork stew, 4 season minced meat green bean, and this deep friend battered yellow fish.
Thirdly, they do have good decorations and what not. The chairs were a beautifully deep purple color, which definitely classed up the place. However, the tables were a piece of shit… lol literally… its like an earthquake as you eat. So i asked if they could maybe put a piece of cardboard or somthing. They just said «That’s just how the tables are!» They do have good uniforms tho, very traditional asian thing.
Fourthly, the prices of this place is definitely not cheap. I think we got 5 dishes and 1 rice dish and 4 ordered of rice came out to be like $ 95 for lunch on the weekend. FYI they charge for tea!
Lastly, I feel like they way they are running the restaurant is just like a gimmick or somthing? Like the dishes they use to present the food is like huge, but the food only takes up like ¼ of the space, which makes it really troublesome cause once you have only 3 dishes your table is like full.
I honestly don’t know if I would come back to place. I mean this place definitely makes shanghainese food more tolerable than most places, since this type of food is known to be EXTREMELY SWEET. I think I would get take out of the ribs in the future if i am craving that specific dish.

I am not quite sure how to rate this restaurant. I should have went with the warnings from past reviews to order low sodium because that would have definitely improved the experience.
Most dishes were sweet and flavorful, but also too salty.
Braised pork belly in pot — delicious and melt in your mouth goodness (a tad too salty). It was the best thing we had today. White rice compliment necessary!
Cube beef steak — good texture (way too salty).
Shanghailander special fried rice — very good and lots of flavor (a tad too salty).
Seaweed fried fish — this was okay. They give you salt and pepper on the side, so the over salting was not an issue with this dish.
Glass noodle in pot — we asked if there’s shrimp in it because our friend has shrimp allergy and they said nope. Guess what we dug up? A dried shrimp. They looked at it and said there’s no shrimp and it’s just XO sauce, but I thought they should have known XO sauce is typically made with seafood such as scallop and dried shrimp. Friend that ate it was okay though, thankfully. Allergies are serious, so please be more careful. Tasted okay, but also too much sodium.
House stir fry vegetable — you get a choice of string beans, Chinese romaine lettuce, snow peas. Good as expected.
Service — we had a very helpful and friendly server. She was great.
Would I come back? Probably, but I will order everything with soy sauce as less sodium.

Food here is authentic but service, portions and price make it less appealing.
Prices are on the higher side and portions are really small. It looks like they aim to be fancy shmancy but you would think if you’re an upscale restaurant the service would be good. But no, their service is terrible like typical Chinese restaurants. The servers look lifeless and it takes several tries to waive them down.
They should check their service or price their food accordingly.

Let’s be honest, service is whack. Staff was unknowledgeable and lackadaisical. However, food trumps all.
The best ever crab Xiao long bao. The flavor was great; however, the skin was not quite firm enough to keep the juices in. Almost all of the skins were punctured when we were served up the dish. This is a serious faux pas. But, I forgive due to the flavor of the filling.
I would order again: The glass noodles had great flavor and had egg white and perhaps tiny roe mixed in. The vegetable melon was cooked well, it had some crunch and most pieces were not better.
Okay dishes: pork belly, bean curd in brown sauce was an average dish. The bean and pork were cooked well but the brown sauce tasted too syrupy and corn starchy. The ong choy was a bit salty. The stir fry shrimp had a nice texture but the flavor was underwhelming. The wined chicken, served cold, was very winey but nonetheless edible. The shen jian bao was a hit among some in the group, but I have a general disdain for breads and this dish had a high bread to meat filling ratio.
I thought the smoked fish was quite off putting. First of all, it wasn’t smoked. The fish was tender but lacking definitive flavor, and there were bones all over the place. Watch yourself.

Shanghailander is one of newer Shanghai restaurant in 626. Shanghai No.1 is my to go for Shanghai food, but this one pop out in Rowland which sound interesting.
The décor isn’t nowhere as fancy as Shanghai No.1 But they got interesting things to see, such as the rickshaw with the shanghai picture background. The restaurant gate is very cool, it has very Chinese style.
However, the food quality isn’t on par with Shanghai No.1 They Are just too much different priority goal. The Shanghainese mutual friend that make most of the order was a low down. Best dish were the spics frog legs. It was tasty and not too gimmick

I’m from Shanghai and love the food there! It’s really good! The best shredded eel ever!!!
Appetizer of shredded veggie and dried tofu is good (ma lan tou xiang gan). And rest of the food are all very authentic and good. Jiu Niang rice ball is good.
The service is not that great though. but i really like the food so i can ignore that.