Shanghai Lu

I’ve only ever eaten from the Dim Sum menu, at the restaurant and on a Sunday. In respect to that parameter I quiet enjoy the experiences I have had here, also keep in mind I only eat the seafood and vegetable dishes.
The restaurant is cleaner than the previous few Dim Sum places that I used to visit and for my tastes, the food is cleaner (less oily, less MSG) and the service staff are more helpful. You still occasionally have the somewhat stoic responses from the staff (lack of eye contact, terse responses) but they don’t forget the things that they you ask for! So thank you for always providing me with tons of that hot mustard!
We usually end up with like ⁶⁄₇ menu choices to share between two or three people and the cost is about $ 45. I’m a sucker for the Sauteed Green Beans, I love the amount of garlic in the dish, I could kiss/​kill Dracula after eating them. The steam Prawn and Chive dumplings are also a must have and I really enjoy the Deep Fried Squid. If you love Pumpkin, the Buddha Feast with said squash is a serious helping of it!

We were happily surprised by our initial unplanned visit Friday… And, I mean initial because we will be back! Very clean and well organized in this space… A lot of dim w) sum options that we loved with welcome options of rice and noodle dishes… Gai lan was still exquisitely green and crisp, lovely shu mai steamed dumplings, sweet curried cuttlefish and other tasty dishes to share… Probably not completely authentic (I wouldn’t know) but VERY easy for a person to become happily accustomed to this friendly place!
We’ll be back soon…

Typical cheap Chinese food, greasy and full of MSG, til you get colon cancer then you will be sorry !!
Portion size small, Whiteman’s Chinese food. Overpriced, you get what you pay for !!
Better off at the food court. Dim Sum is outsourced, not made in house.
Don’t order number #81 Deep Fried Pork Chops in gourmet sauce.(soaked in mystery sauce).
Don’t order number #50 Crispy Skin Chicken, missing one breast.

Overpriced and quality is mediocre. We used to order from them quite frequently but the quality of the food has gotten worse and worse over time, and the prices have gone up significantly. Most recently we ordered a small steamed fish which weighed just over 1 lb. They charged us $ 45. We asked them if there had been a mistake, but they were unapologetic and told us the fish actually weight 1.5 lbs before they gutted it.
So essentially we were charged 50% more than we actually received, and were enlightened that cod prices have increased to over $ 40/​lb.
Bottom line, quality is going down, prices are going up… if you’re going to be paying these prices, go to Kirin and it’ll feel like a bargain.

Not great, not bad. Wouldn’t say it’s hardcore Shanghainese as I was here for a popular HK-​based dish, flat noodles with beef & bean sprouts. What I didn’t like was more greasier than normal.
Regular grease, I can accept, after all, it’s Chinese food.
And to be fair to all, esp to Unilocalers, you won’t find a regular CBC’s parents throwing themselves to come here. It’s more of a convenience than anything, especially during the lunch time, it’s packed. You will see the office crowd here.
Think though, they had its time, probably 10 years ago judging from the HK celebrities who have visited here; even the pics looked old lol.
Décor, it’s nice enough, has gone thru a reno in the past year or so.
White table cloth linen.
Service is good.
But if you’re already here, I suggest spending a few more bucks to go to Dynasty, much better food, a bit fancier albeit it. Now that’s where you’ll see the well to do folks ;)

Excellent service excellent food. If you order a certain amount of dishes in the evening you get a free chicken or half crab. Quality made soup, egg and prawns, sweet and sour chicken, green beans, steamed preserved vegetable and pork cake, mushrooms and bok choy, fish in hot pot is fantastic. 10% off dim sum before noon m-​f and 20% off during 2 – 4 happy hour. Will be back!

Really 3.5 stars
Stumbled onto this place as I was craving Shanghai dumplings. Had a sign for happy hour 20% off during 2−4pm with $ 3 beers so why not.
The service was quick and efficient. Prices decent.
The vegetable dishes were fantastic and great serving size
The meat dishes — meh which brings it down from 4 to 3 stars. The steamed be buns were not the best, the Shanghai dumpling was extremely disappointing.
The pork and chive dumpling was great though.
I would go back and order the veggie meals again
Value ⁴⁄₅
Atmosphere ³⁄₅
Service ⁴⁄₅
Quality ³⁄₅
¹⁴⁄₂₀

3.5 stars.
This is not the same «Shanghai Lu» as before. It is under different ownership, has a new Chinese name, but just kept the previous place’s English name. According to their radio commercial, they used to operate in Burnaby but have moved to this location.
Came here on a Saturday for a dim sum lunch. Not too busy, probably because they are still new in the area. Their dim sum menu has a good selection. I liked the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, and the deep fried peppery salt tofu. Prices are comparable to other dim sum places in the area. I also recommend their lunch special fried rice and noodle dishes, great value and taste for less than $ 10.

We came here based on a recommendation from a friend. Apparently this place has changed ownership since our friend had eaten here as this was not an acceptable dining experience. We began with Hot and Sour Soup which was tasty but not spicy in the least. Our entrees showed up shortly afterwards. All we can say is the Kung Pao Chicken had a pretty funky taste as if the corn or some vegetable was off. As well, this dish was not spicy in the least. The mushroom vegetable dish had reconstituted mushrooms and finally the shrimp dish was quite tasteless. We should have been tipped off when we saw we were the only ones in the restaurant upon arrival. The service was good-​food less so. Thumbs down.

NOOOOOOOO!
This was the best place to go for lunch — with the BEST ginger beef in the city.
They renovated & changed the menu.
Barebones lunch menu (no soup) and their ginger beef is completely different.
So disappointing. They’ve lost some weekly customers unfortunately.
Rest in Peace, Ginger Beef.

This used to be a good place for takeout.
Must have changed ownership.
My 45 minute delivery turned into 1 hour and 35 minutes!
The shrimp Sichuan dish that was $ 13 on the takeout menu was $ 18.90! I received half of what I usually get!
The chow mien was cold, flavourless and not crispy as I asked.
The sweet and sour chicken which was usually very good with the sauce on the side was cold, sauce in, and half of what I usually get at $ 5 more than the takeout menu !!
Guess they increased the prices, cut the portions in half, and hired a cook that renders everything void of taste!
Was this the decision of some smart business person?
You will be out of business in no time smarty pants.
You lost a loyal takeout order customer tonight!

Over the weekend, my mother and I had a hankering for good Shanghai xiao long bao and decided to head to Shanghai Lu for a visit. When we arrived on a chilly Saturday night, the place was pretty quiet but the service was prompt and the staff friendly. After looking at their extensive menu we decided to order a few things to share.
Of course, we ordered xiao long bao (pro tip, if you want to sound like a cool foodie, call it XLB for short). If you haven’t tried XLB (ha get what I did there?), they are a dumpling filled with juicy pork and broth. You dip the dumpling in a vinegar sauce, pop the whole thing in your mouth (be careful, the broth can be REALLY hot) and enjoy the amazing flavours. They are perfect for a chilly evening. XLB is notoriously hard to make and eat. That’s because the skin on a good XLB is so thin that unless you pick them up super gently, the skin will puncture and all the yummy juices will leak out.
There is a whole technique to picking up a XLB ‘properly’ (at least according to my mother).
«Using the lightest touch, pick up the XLB on top where the skin gathers with your chopsticks. This is where the skin is thickest.
In your free hand, hold out a spoon next to the XLB and quickly transfer the XLB from your chopsticks onto the spoon. This ensures that the juices don’t ‘break through’ the bottom of the dumpling (since the bottom is no longer being supported by a flat surface). Once the dumpling is on your spoon, you can pour a bit of vinegar on for flavour.»
The dumplings at Shanghai Lu were pretty good actually, the skin on the dumpling wasn’t too thick (but could be a bit better) and the juice and pork were tasty. And yes, we used proper technique. No leakage!
My mom and I also shared their sliced chicken noodles. It’s a chilled dish, with chicken, cucumber, glass noodles and a peanut/​sesame sauce. As you can see from the photo above, the glass noodles are flat and thick cut. They have a great chewy consistency and we quite enjoyed the texture of the noodles, chicken, and the sesame/​peanut sauce together. This was my mom’s favourite dish.
Next up we had salted duck. This is another dish that is served chilled. The duck has been marinated in a salt brine and served with bones, skin and fat on it. The focus is the flavour of duck meat, which is quite «gamey». You eat the skin, fat and meat whole; I love duck so this was a great dish but if you are squeamish about that kind of thing, it’s probably not for you.
Last but not least, MY favourite. The pan fried rice cake with pork. The rice cakes are thinly sliced to the size of a coin and pan fried in a delicious sauce with spinach and pork. Don’t let the word «cake» fool you, it’s not a sweet dish or dessert; all savoury here. When you order this dish, it can be quite oily in some Shanghainese restaurants but Shanghai Lu does a good job on reigning it in. I LOVED the chewiness of the rice cake; some places it can be a bit dry and chalky, but the rice cake slices here are perfectly prepared. The sauce was flavourful and there was a generous amount of pork and spinach as well
All those dishes set us back $ 39.83 (tax included), not bad! We were too full for dessert and we ended up packing quite a bit to go. What can I say, my mom and I like our food!

I think this restaurant must have seen better days. We were in the area and decided to give this restaurant a try.
We stopped by at 11:30am on a Sunday and we were the only customers at that point. We were seated right away and given the menu and served tea.
We were both feeling under the weather and wanted a light meal. First thing we noticed is that the menu is suffering from an identity crisis. You would think with this restaurant would specialize in northern Chinese cuisine judging by the restaurant name, but they were advertising dim sum (Cantonese aka southern Chinese)! Anyways, we orders some xiao long bao, braised chicken noodle soup and boiled meat and vegetable dumplings.
Quality of the food was okay. It was decent and passable. A little overpriced compare to other restaurants. Service was great because we were one of a few tables by the time we left.

Not recommended, a lot of MSG !!
My order was the ginger beef, scallop dumplings, pan-​fried pork and chives dumpling.
I ordered through foodler and it came within the indicated time frame.
The ginger beef tasted great, pan-​fried dumplings are too greasy and oily, and the scallop dumplings were pretty good.
The reason for the low rating is how I feel right now. I know without a doubt there was a loaddd of MsG in this food. I have a huge headache, among other flu-​like symptoms, but I only had these symptoms about 10 minutes after eating. I’ll never order here again.
I thought we all figured out we can make food without MSG and didn’t do that anymore…

I usually tend to stay away from these large, mainstream Chinese restaurants. I find that the place is lavishly decorated and entertaining but the food itself is mediocre at best, and VERY typically westernized. This establishment was no exception. The food was ok, my Singapore Noodles were far less spicy than I prefer, or am used to, perhaps they toned it down for «whitey» when they ordered it? The serving itself was quite small, SO NOT worth the 12 dollars and not enough to share with more than onr other person. Pan fried Gyoza was fine, previously frozen as I could detect a slight freezer burn taste. All in all if you were stuck like I was on Broadway with this being one of the few places open that time of night fine. IF other establishments are open, by all means try them out.

Came here on a recommendation for Shanghai style food.
We ordered a pickled veggie pork noodles in soup that was pretty good. Also had the Xiao Lung Bao dumplings, OK, not the best, but passable.
We also ordered a current special duck, didn’t know it was a cold dish (wish the server explained it better) and it seemed like they just poured some sweet pinkish red sauce on the duck. Not that great.
We decided to order some dessert since we weren’t full yet. Got the glutinous balls with sesame filling. Too funny, they served it in boiling water and not some sweet soup like it supposed to be.
Giving it 2 stars only because the noodles were decent, but the rest, meh!