Shanghai Restaurant

There are 3 Chinese buffet restaurants on the Nampa-​Caldwell blvd in Nampa. This is the middle one of the three (Jade Garden being the worst by far). When I look for a good Chinese Buffet restaurant I look for four things. # 1. Is the food good tasting? # 2. Is it HOT? # 3. Is the wait staff friendly and efficient? # 4. Is the price worth the food you get?
This restaurant, the Shanghai, fails completely on the first two and on # 4. I will give them the fact that their wait staff was friendly and efficient tho. But even they had the look of people who knew the food was bad there. Like they felt sorry for you for having come to this restaurant.
The General’s Chicken was simply awful. I had one bite and spit it out it was that bad.
None of the «hot» dishes were even lukewarm let alone hot.
My favorite Chinese dish is Kung Pao (chicken or shrimp) and I was surprised to see that they offered Kung Pao chicken on their buffet — however it was the worst excuse for Kung Pao I’ve ever come across. Kung Pao is SUPPOSED TO BE hot and SPICY and theirs was neither. It was bland and lame and not hot at all. I was not impressed by ANY of the items they offered on their lunch buffet. NONE
My advice to anyone in Nampa looking for a good Chinese Buffet restaurant is go right down the street to the Sino Buffet restaurant. The food there is MUCH better both in quality and in choices on the respective buffets. The difference in cost between the two restaurants, for their respective lunch buffets, is only 74 cents ($ 7.75 at Shanghai and $ 8.49 at Sino) but the two buffets are as different as night and day. Sino’s buffet is the 2^nd best Chinese buffet that I’ve come across in the Treasure Valley and is superior to the Shanghai in every way possible.

Not worthy of one star. I walked in looked at the disgusting looking food on what the call a buffet and left in a hurry.

Ordered the sweet & sour chicken and general tsos chicken, both were below average chinese. Crab Rangoon tasted old and bland. Ribs were acceptable but overall a terrible experience. Do not recommend.

Shanghai is just like any other Chinese restaurant, some of there items are really good and others are either ok or not so good. I have yet to find a Chinese restaurant were I love all there items. It seems that I go were ever I’m in the mood for. I will say they have good fried rice and crab ragoons. The price of the food is reasonable. The fried food can be a little heavy though. Overall they will feel your need for a quick buffet meal. Oh if you order off the menu, try there Mongolian beef its really good. If you like it spicy just tell them and it will come out with some nice heat. If your there when Doddi is the waitress, she is the bomb digity she makes your meal a 4 star experience

Best pork fried rice ever! This is my go to chinese place. Not only is the food great and the portions large but the delivery is superfast!

I don’t know what everyone is fussing about because I think this place is great and I like to think I have a more refined palate than most. Yes sometimes when you go to a buffet you’re subject to questionable items but the beauty of that is that you get to CHOOSE what you eat. If it doesn’t look good, don’t put it on your plate or in your gullet (grandma calls the belly a «turkey bird», love that woman!). Ok enough of my rant, onto my review…
Another one of my grandparents faves, we came here so they could introduce us to their all-​time fave server Dodi. She is a peach of a woman with the mouth of a sailor but she’s only that way around us because she’s known my grandparents for the many many years they’d been coming into this place.
As soon as you sit your fanny in your seat it’s time to get up and go to the buffet (dangerous but delicious place for me!). They have an array of both Chinese and American dishes which is quite nice for me because my tummy can welcome both at the same time. They have killer fried rice along with some meat and noodle dishes. I do have to say that their eggrolls aren’t my fave only because the meat to veggie ratio is off for some reason. Other than that I’m quite pleased with their offerings and my «turkey bird» was more than happy!

they didn’t ask the age of my daughter so we paid the adult price for her. a group of women came in after us and no one saw to them. the food was so/​so, but most of it was what you expect, fried fried fried. What I would expect to get in the frozen food section in the grocery store. I was even less impressed with the condition of the bathroom, I ended up using hand sanitizer when I got back to my table… what was even grosser was the heated water under the hot pans, it must have been fungus/​yellow snot looking stuff in the water. I kept an eye on all of us for food poisoning and salmonella… I ended up in the bathroom a couple times while there and when I got home. the servers were really friendly, but I could have made better homemade Chinese at home.

Love the egg flower soup and pork fried rice here.