A La Shanghai
- Price Range: $$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
11 Reviews for A La Shanghai
Me and my roomie ordered Green Bean and some noodles and it was both flavorless and plain. Not enough flavor and the menu selection are not as impressive. I wouldn't give it a 2nd chance.
The prices are decent here. We spent about $55 plus tax on five dishes which is pretty damn good in this day and age. The first time I went here there were hardly any patrons and the food was excellent. The second time the food was pretty good except they got my order wrong. I still ate it but it definitely made it hard for me to give it anything but an average rating. The juicy dumplings were very juicy. As a Chinese food snob, I'd say this is OK on my meter. I'll probably go back just because it's in a convenient location.
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ridiculously slow service - seriously! when we got there, the place was half empty and still, it took an eternity - not good when you have a toddler with you. dishes were okay, dumplings were good enough for 2 stars, rather than the 1 I wanted to give for such ridiculous service. Smarten up! FoodTalk is too good and just around the corner!
It's hard for me to consider giving them a second shot when Food Talk is always there to take my money...
My gf and I decided to try this place on a whim after checking out the new shops at Pacific Commons.
We had the soup with vegetable dumplings, drunk chicken, and simplified chow mein. Tea was of course served as soon as we sat down, and besides being a good hot temperature, the tea had no aftertaste and a pleasant feel while drinking it.
Dishes, bowls and silverware were fairly clean (we exchanged one dish because we thought it wasn't clean properly).
The food was not too bad, and my gf tells me the vegetable used in the dumplings is specific to the central China region. The menu isn't anything outstanding though (standard fare).
A few odds things caught our attention: we never received chopsticks (only one fork per person), and when we received the soup we weren't given bowls and spoons (we gave the restaurant a few minutes to see if they would notice... when they didn't, we asked for those items and received them promptly).
Service overall was good - but there are a few things they could improve on (e.g. attention to detail... like chopsticks?) and maybe a few more eye-catching dishes on the menu.
The menu freaked me out. Looked very AMERICAN.
Think:
Kung Pao
Beef Broccoli
We looked more closely at the menu and found the truly authentic:
*Salty ham, pork & bamboo soup: deliciously meaty broth.
*Bamboo & shredded pork: good.
*Steamed sliced fish: classic clean flavors of chives. ginger & soy.
*Celery stir fry: fresh with a Shanghai style legume.
*Large pea sprouts: huge pieces, and nice portion.
*Tofu Skin wrapped pork balls w/spinach & brown sauce: not a huge fan of sweet in savory foods, but this was mild.
Nothing was too oily or salty. There was a noticeable ABSENCE of cornstarch.
Service was a tad slow, we were there a little over an hour, but they are still hiring staff at the moment, so I'm going to cut them a break.
All of these were dinner portions @ lunch, not cheap, but the portions are more than adequate. Plenty of lunch plates at lunch prices.
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We came here for lunch on Sunday, and with 4 people, we ordered 4 dumpling dishes ($5.95 each) and a pork fried rice noodle ($6.95) to share. We thought that this amount of food would be enough for us, but we realized that it wasn't halfway through our meal because those dumplings were so darn small. We proceeded to add another chow mein dish, but due to the long wait (must have waited for over 30 minutes for that last dish), we ended up having to cancel the order, paid the bill and left.
If you are not a native Mandarin speaker, you may find it a little hard to order in this place, as the waitstaff only seems to want to speak to you in Mandarin. English descriptions of certain menu items are also very vague and would be pretty meaningless unless you can read Chinese.
Bottom Line: It's totally not worth it. I don't think I'll ever have the urge to come back here again.
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Wanted to try foodtalkcafe, but they weren't open yet for early dinner, so we came here. Big mistake. Service was terrible, and they don't even bother to thank you. Both mom and I got sick for a week. Vomitting, then diarrhea for a week.
We had the steamed dumplings, sliced fish tail, spinach & garlic, and salt & pepper pork. Even though there were very few customers, there was a long delay. The pork came out first. Long delay. Then the steamed dumplings. Even longer delay. Then the fish. Even longer delay. Then the spinach. Meanwhile, a later table had gotten all their food already, eaten and left. Maybe because they ordered stuff like fried rice and sweet & sour pork. Our pork was dry and overcooked. The fish was too sweet.
Don't eat here. You just might get sick also.
Horrible horrible horrible. Snail-slow service (as in dishes came out literally 10 minutes after each other, despite the fact that the restaurant was less than 50% full), bugs in the rice, waiters who found it incredibly difficult to simply refill our teapots, and nearly everything we ordered wasn't available-- the xiao long bao, pea sprouts, even the squid. It's as if they didn't buy enough ingredients to last the entire day. Our first serving of rice was lukewarm and one of the people in our party found a bug crawling in her rice. Do NOT go here. You're much better off at one of the Chinese places in McCarthy Ranch.
The family was driving around Pacific Commons last night, wondering what to eat? Chipotle? no. Panera? no. PF Chang's? ummm...no don't feel like paying $60 for Chinese food. So we drive by the newer buildings by Costco and I am sure glad we did. We passed by "A La Shanghai" and it caught our eyes, so we park the car and do a "walk by", you know check out the menu before you go in. Well, there was no menu only an ad in Chinese saying "help wanted". Dangit, we look inside and there is no one at 7pm peak dinner time, so we wonder and wonder should we try it out? And we do.
We were greeted immediately, given menu's and a full pot of hot green tea. The menu has your regular items and nothing is priced over $10, except for the Chef's Special Seafood ($15) which is in Chinese, so i can't tell you what's "special" about it. We had:
Hot & Sour Soup- really good, had mushrooms which were a nice touch
Ma Po Tofu- wheeew, spicy I tell ya! The tofu was soft and silky just how I like it!
Chow Rice Cake- This lacked a little salt, but the bits of pork saved this dish.
Beef Fried Rice- Didn't try this but my son ate most of it, so i guess that's a good sign.
The ambiance of this place is more cafe style with darker tables and chairs with dim lighting. This is not your typical Chinese restaurant with the loud kitchen, non-existent waitstaff and oily food. You should definitely try it the next time you are craving Chinese and not wanting to pay $60 for 4 dishes at PF Chang's, we paid $29 =)
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Sigh...another so-so place in Fremont. Wasn't disgusting...but wasn't anything special.
We saw this place a few weeks back...it actually started out as a little joke between me and my coworker. One day we were checking out all of the new restaurants and looked at the menu on the outside. Next to the menu there was a sign indicating they were hiring. It said that they were looking for waiters and people to work in the back. They wrote: Should speak Mandarin, English, or....(wait for it, wait for it) Mexican. Mexican?! They might as well have said they needed people to speak Asian and American too :)
The restaurant was fairly full when we got there (12:30 during the week). They had a whole bunch of lunch specials so my coworker and I decided to just stick with that. I ordered the ma-po tofu and she ordered the green onion beef. We also ordered a side of potstickers.
Ma-Po Tofu
Wow. Did they pour a bucket of salt in this? Wayyy too salty. The silken tofu was cut into good-sized pieces that were still intact, so that was a plus. Too bad the saltiness of the sauce ruined the dish.
Green Onion Beef
Pretty good. Nice pieces of beef with a good sauce.
Potstickers
I don't like how they deep fried the entire potsticker. I prefer my potstickers to be fried on the bottom only. The filling was pretty good, there was a good proportion of meat to vegetable. Inside was juicy, not dry. The potstickers come along with a side of dipping sauce which is again way too salty and overwhelming. I would recommend just using the soy sauce and chili sauce that is provided on the table.
The portions of the lunch specials were huge...especially for the price. As we finished our meal, we noticed that a lot of customers were ordering the Shanghai dumplings. I would come back to try the dumplings and maybe some noodle dishes.
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I decided to give this place a try Sunday (10/21) after church. It is located in the brand new shopping center located across from Costco. I was a bit skeptical as it was 12:30 and the place was pretty empty. So, I entered with rather low expectations. Unlike many Chinese restaurants, this place is clean. Even bathroom clean. Could be the fact that it is pretty new or that someone actually cleans here.
The menu appears somewhat authentic with a few Americanized items like the ubiquitous lemon chicken and broccoli beef. Most items on the menu were under $10. I opted to continue my long-standing quest to find decent XLB. We order the Shanghai Juicy Dumplings, Shan Xian Dumplings, and Brown Sauce with Cucumber Noodles. I was pleasantly surprised by my meal. The XLB were fresh with tender skins. The filling was tender and very juicy. Literally, the soup inside was gushing out. Do not eat this straight away unless you want to put steaming hot liquid into your mouth. This was one of the better offerings for XLB, I've had in a long time. I far preferred this over the XLB at Shanghai Dumpling Shop or Shan Tong in SF. A little pricey to me at $5.95 for 1/2 dozen, but on the other hand, I am not about to make these myself. I would defintely get these again. Next time, I will request soup spoons before hand because I lost all the flavorful soup. The Shan Tian Dumplings were good, nothing special though. It is a shrimp, pork and vegetable dumpling that they serve with a sweet dipping sauce which I skipped. I would pass on ordering these again. Honestly, I can make better ones at home. The Brown Sauce with Cucumber Noodles is supposed to be ja ja mein. This does not resemble ja ja mein in any way except for the shredded cucumbers and cooked noodles. The traditional meat sauce was MIA. However, I very pleased with what they served instead. The noodles were generously topped by a flavorful sauce consisting of tender morsels of chicken, pressed bean curd, bell pepper, and onion accompanied by crisp julienned cucumber. This is definitely something, I would order again. All in all, I thought the food was fresh and flavorful without resorting to excess amounts of salt, soy sauce or oil.
I would note that this restaurant has been open for only a few months. In general, I find that the food and service is generally uneven and sometimes awful for a few months. So, I would take the previous reviews with a grain of salt and chalk it up to working out the kinks. Although, the food was better than I expected, the service was uneven as the wait staff really don't know what they are doing. So, I reduced that rating by one star to reflect this.
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