Tasty Noodle House
4646 Convoy St, San Diego, CA 92111, United States
Bustling business in a very over crowded plaza. Youre very likely to need to find parking around on the street or across the street at the Jasmine parking complex.Tables were full when we got there at 1:30pm Sunday, took about 25 minutes to clear 9 tables which is pretty good in my opinion.Interior was very clean and as soon as you sit down theres already water and peanuts waiting for you with your menus.Extremely large 150+ entry menu. We ordered the fried pork buns, the stir fried sticky rice cake, the fried yellow croaker, the stir fried snails with chives, and the seafood soup noodles. This is an actual authentic Shanghai restaurant: the flavors are light, not very salty, and tending towards a sweeter palate. Everything was well cooked and the flavors excellent. There werent a lot of snails on the plate, however they were very high quality and without any hint of the usual fishiness of what you mostly find in the states. Im pretty sure they are using an escargot supplier. I particularly enjoyed the sticky rice cake, the ji cai vegetable they were cooked with were, amazingly, fresh (!!!), when usually you can only get it frozen in the US. The flavor blew me out of the water- I wasnt expecting such a heart warning taste of home so far away.The staff was courteous, attentive, and high energy. I say this almost disbelievingly about such an authentic Chinese restaurant, but today it is my very great pleasure and pride to do so. The management seems to be doing their job quite well.One of the easiest five stars Ive ever given, in terms of flavor, ingredients, cleanliness, and service, I wouldnt give a single star less in any category.
Shanghai Bun
1029 Rosecrans St, San Diego, CA 92106, United States
My fiancee and I heard about Shanghai Bun, and we got excited to try some new dim sum. Unfortunately, we never got to eat any food because of the horrible service and long wait time for simple menu items.We were the first table to arrive, and the blonde waitress or whatever she was barely look up when she welcomed us and then said to sit wherever we like. We proceeded to the back and before we sat down, a brunette employee (I think an owner or manager) came over and wiped down our table with her mask hanging on her chin, which is against the rules. Then the waitress came by and asked for our order. We werent ready yet, so she left.A large table of people started to arrive, and having extensive experience in the food service industry, I wanted to get our order in before theirs. Five minutes later, the waitress still hadnt returned, so I got up to go find her. She was taking a to-go order, and gave me serious attitude when I asked her to come take our order. The attitude extended during the order taking, and she had the nerve to return with my fancy drink and literally say well, heres that!We waited for 25 minutes for a few of the tapas/dim sum, and finally decided to get our order to go because we didnt have time. I went and asked the server, who was on the phone taking another to-go order, and she gave me attitude and argued with me. I was tired of dealing with her, so I approached the other woman and asked the same thing. She LITERALLY pulled down her mask to her chin to talk to us while being around 3 feet away, and she gave us the same argument. My fiancee asked her to pull up her mask, but I was done with the entire situation.We walked out after 45 minutes without getting a single food item, and I will not return.
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Dumpling Inn & Shanghai Saloon
4625 Convoy St, San Diego, CA 92111, United States
Now i know what the hype is about. This food is paradise, heaven, and everything amazing adjective you can give for food.Got here around 8 pm on a Friday night and were told it would be a 20 min wait. We were given the option of sitting at the bar, but we decided to wait for a table. They give you one of those long-distance vibrator discs so you do not have to wait in the loud restaurant. And it gets pretty loud due to the crowd and the open spacing.Decor is very oriental. You do feel like youve entered a high-class restaurant in the East.Because they are crowded, the servers sound harried and a little pushy to make you order quick. I havent felt forced to choose something on the menu within a minute of sitting down. But, I will ignore that, because the food was SO SO SO GOOD!!We ordered the shrimp chow-mein, the pork soup dumplings and then the orange chicken because it looked good on the table next to ours.The chow-mein was fantastic. Properly steamed and cooked, so tasty and taken to another level with the chili sauce they provide on the table. I could not stop eating it!The dumplings were delicious also. Probably not as soupy as the ones at Ding Tan Fung, but really really good! Ive never added the peanut oil to my soy sauce before, and it really worked.The orange chicken was very orangy with a good balance of sweet, sour and a hint of spice. The jasmine rice was probably the best part of that dish.We were in a food coma through the whole thing and after. Normally we talk a lot, but there was silence as we devoured our way through it all.The drinks were a bit disappointing. We had the gin mule and the vodka with citrus drink (dont remember the name now). They were both sweeter than we anticipated, so I was more than happy when my food arrived later.The food is so good here, you can ignore everything that is less than stellar about the place, including parking. Start looking from about a mile away as the parking lot is usually full.
Chef Zhu
7845 Highlands Village Pl c101, San Diego, CA 92129, United States
Interstate 5 goes from Canada all the way to Mexico. Close to the Canadian end there is this Shanghainese cuisine place called Shanghai River, deemed the best Shanghainese cuisine restaurant in Vancouver. I agreed. Now I drove 22 hours along I5 South to San Diego, I found another Shanghainese cuisine gem, Chef Zhu. Like Yin to the Yang, Bonnie to Clyde, Romeo to Juliet, these 2 restaurants are simply the best along the whole west coast. You want really traditional Shanghainese food like Sweet and Sour Ribs (糖醋排骨)? try it here. You want American Chinese food like orange chicken? they have you covered. Want something you never heard of? Like Malantou (Indian aster)? You wont be disappointed.Chef Zhu is the real deal. This place has the most authenticate Shanghainese cuisine you can find. You know what the authenticate flavor means to someone from Eastern China? Sweet memory of the distant home. The long-gone memory of picking wide malantou with mom around Ching Ming Festival, cooking a pot of Sweet and sour ribs and enjoy it with the whole family, enjoying a golden crispy fried dough with a hot bowl of congee in a winter morning before rushing to school. That is what good food means to someone who has left home for 11 years and never had the chance to go back.Thank you for the food and the nice service. Sincerely.
Sizzling Pot King
8058 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92111, United States
My sister wanted to try this place. We were confusing this with a hot pot style restaurant. Hot pot style is where you cook your food in boiling broth. This style is a stir fried Shanghainese. You pick a list of items you want, meats and veggies. They stir fry it in the kitchen and then set the wok on a burner to keep it hot. Theres was such a mix of everything so chopped up I couldnt always tell what I was eating. It was also extremely salty. I like salty foods but this was more than I could take. We also didnt get all the items we ordered so they got cancelled at the end.
Village Kitchen
4720 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92117, United States
This is one of my favorite Chinese places in San Diego, alongside Village North. They serve Hunan cuisine which is known for its spiciness and unforgiving assault of flavors on the palate, so be prepared for a heavy tasting meal and perhaps lots of rice and ice water!Some of the highlights here include the preserved pork--I like it both in the stir fry and in the dry pot. The stir fry can be a tad dry at times, but the fresh garlic leaves more than make up for that, and the dry pot is just so flavorful with the smoked bamboos, giving the dish as smoky of a flavor as you will ever find in Chinese food (which should appeal to any BBQ fans out there). Chairman Maos braised pork is quite good, similar to many other braised pork dishes, with a fermented bean curd flavor, as is common in the braised pork of certain Chinese (non Shanghainese) cuisines. The deboned pork rib with fried egg casserole is actually one of the milder dishes on the menu in terms of flavor, but not in terms of spiciness! Its one that I enjoy very much as well for some lighter dishes to balance the others. On the other hand, the pickled chilli with pork is quite a spicy dish, with the aromas of the chilli pepper making the dish very very good.Of the non-pork dishes, the Chefs Beef Brisket is quite good, a little bit reminiscent of beef noodle soups except served as a dish without noodles and soup. The mapo tofu is a simple but very flavorful dish with plenty of Sichuan peppercorns to numb your tongue. The steamed egg here is possibly one of my favorite steamed eggs Ive had, with some good flavors and a very good texture on the egg--not over or underdone. The eggplant with green chilli and century egg dish is one of their signatures for a reason. The flavors are very balanced with the eggplant serving as a good base.I could probably go on about the other dishes since there really hasnt been many that have disappointed me. I highly recommend coming with a group of people to order and try more dishes and seeing which you enjoy the most! I also noticed that the dishes tend to be spicier in the summer, since perhaps it fluctuates with the spiciness of the chilli peppers which may be seasonal, so if you want to give yourself a challenge, definitely come during that time.
Mr Holy Gao
10066 Pacific Heights Blvd, San Diego, CA 92121, United States
If there is a way to rank lower tha 1 star, I will do that. It is terrible on Food, service and also atmosphere. We tried the breakfast today as the sunday.1. firstly, i think they violate the laws. We ordered the food based on the menu at the front desk. There are plenty of copies there, ( white color, on the side of front desk) (You can still find that in the google). And we got several copies from the waiters when we were ordering the food. But in the final bill, I felt weird to see the different prices in at least 3 dishes (Chinese donut) . I asked the cashier that the prices were different from the menu, she just told me the menu you saw is out of date, insist (several times) that you should use the ones shown in the bill. Then I asked if the menus were wrong, why the waiters gave them to us and why the menu was there. Then when we were arguing, another waiter/cashier came to see what happened and took over the waitress. He called the boss and finally updated the bill with the prices in the menu. The bill wasnt changed very much (from $53 to $50), but their service is disaster. I do not think if there could be two different prices in any restaurant.2. The food is disaster. We have orderred several dishes, but I can tell all of them were worse than I expected, except (the chinese donut). (1) The congee with pork & preserved eggs, really just congee + 1 tiny pork+ 1piece preserved egg (you can imagine). The congee is not very good. The tiny pork is very hard to find. I spend a while to figure out that there is a very tiny one. The preserved egg is a small piece. I dont think anyone there really taste this popular food in China. (2) salty Chinese style Tofu, not much really taste of Chinese style tofu, it is salty with soy sauce. Taste really weird with soy sauce dominant; (3) sweet chinese style tofu, not much chinese style tofu, like sweet water. (4) original soybean milk, nothing special, I doubt it is got from the super maket. (5) porridge 6 side dish. We tried pickled mustard green-too salty, salted duck egg-too salted, no special, dried meat floss-- just so so. The other 3, fermented tofu+olive+edamame, look very ugly ( a black lump) and are hard to convince me to give them a try. (6) shanghai Veggie & yellow croaker wonton soup. Stinking smell as of rotten fish. I had a bite and almost throw out. We decided not to try at that time and took it home, but after several hours, the smells prevented us to try again. I think they were wasting the food, waste my time!!!3 There were only few visitors and 3 tables near the noon. I tried to complain the food twice, it was ignore first time. And I tried again second time, but I dont think they really heard my comments and no any feedback or response any more. I dont think they really take the suggestions into consideration. The waiters/waitress look not very busy, even so, I did not see much communications between the waiters/waitress and the customers. This is a minor thing. But the food and the services are disaster. I think they probably just want to make money from us one time, try to take out of the money as much as they can!STRONGLY NOT RECOMMENDED!!