Little Shanghai Restaurant in San Mateo

Fast-paced restaurant with delicious Shanghai food. I would highly recommend their dessert of Mini Sesame Dumplings in Rice Wine Sauce (酒釀).For entrees, #703: Gi Chai w/Bamboo Shoots is my favorite vegetable dish while #301: Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs Shanghai Style.Their dim sum is on the more expensive side, and I found one of their classics #9: Shanghai Fried Pork Buns to not be the most flavorful.The restaurant has a small interior with a low ceiling. There are limited parking spots by the side. The staff are very friendly and speak both English and Chinese.

Ive been visiting this restaurant for many years when I want Shanghai food. It serves authenticate Shanghai dishes and common chinese dishes. Price is reasonable, and portion is good. The food is yummy. The noise is a bit unbearable because it has a low ceiling, and when people start talking, it is pretty noisy. I like the spicyvpork noodle soup. The xioa long bao is good, but the skin is too thick. The spicy pork stomach is ok. It is kind of boiled and just mixed with the chili sauce. The chinese donut is fresh and crunchy. It seems they have too much msg in one dish. After the meal, I felt thirsty for quite some time.

The food is delicious! It’s really crowded and packed with people.The variety of the menu is surprising, you better check the menu and what to order before going there.Yes, the staff was friendly and funny as many people mentioned! 🥟

The service here is great but the food is mediocre at best. I ordered the savory soybean milk, xlb, red bean paste pancake, Shanghai rice roll, and fried pork bun. The soybean milk is not what Im used to because they put vinegar in there. The doughnut in the rice roll was soggy so I believe they were already pre-made instead of made to order. The xlb didnt have much flavor or broth and the skin is way too thick. The red bean paste tasted like red beans from a can. The fried pork bun also felt like it was fried for a while and the juice was already fully soaked into the bun and not crispy outside.I wouldnt call this authentic Shanghainese food but they do have a lot of varieties for those who want to get a feel of what Shanghainese food is about.

Food is authentic, my parents didnt complain at all. The bean pancakes are so good I forgot to take the picture before I dig it!

Super authentic and frequented by Bay Area Shanghainese! My family’s been coming here for years, and their consistency has only gone up

Very ethnic place, frequented mainly by Asians. To me thats a good indicator. Good prices, que a variety of dishes. Waiters were friendly spoke mainly Chinese, limited English. But enough to communicate the order. Had a few parking spaces. Four stars for what it is. Nothing fancy, just plane Chinese food

Food is fantastic. We have been twice now and have not been disappointed. The service is good, but try and go when they are less busy otherwise you could be waiting longer for service.

Little Shanghai is a true gem and totally legit. We ordered mapo tofu and Shanghai stir-fried rice cakes (nian gao). The mapo tofu was delicious and smelled like Sichuan peppercorns. So good!

The pine nut fish is perfectly sweet, sour, soft and crispy.I dislike the soup dumplings as they have no soup in them at allThe 生煎包 is not bad, with crispy pan fried bun!The onion noodles are okay, too much to finish.