Shun Lee Palace

I have been coming to this restaurant for over 35 years. It has always held up very well and actually surpassed virtually every Chinese cuisine in New York City, but at a steep price. I always felt the price was worth the quality and was justified because of their dedication to cooking terrific food. Unfortunately, times have changed. I have now been back to this establishment six times within the last six months and each time it has gotten progressively worse and worse. It is resting on its laurels of years gone by and is no longer relevant to the New York City Chinese dining scene. The soup dumplings were gummy. You can get far better soup dumplings down in Chinatown for ¹⁄₁₀^th of the price. The Beijing duck looked like it was prepared a week ago and tasted like it had been dead for two years. It was terrible. And at a very steep price. The lobster with ginger, black beans and scallions was so overcooked that it had a mealy consistency. As much as I hate to say it, because this institution has been on my radar for so long, the sun has set and it will not be long for this world. (The reason I gave my experience one star is because the spareribs were actually good. Otherwise, had there been an option, I would have given it zero stars. Zero because of the extremely high prices, poor quality, lack of care in terms of how the food is prepared and an overall vibe that this place is more of a funeral home than an active, vibrant establishment).

We went here to celebrate a special occasion and unfortunately were extremely disappointed. Only one person’s meal out of our entire party was satisfactory. One person barely touched their food and the other members of the party found their meals to be bland and unexciting. Considering that a plate of vegetables is roughly thirty dollars, this unimaginative and poorly seasoned food is just unacceptable. The service was good, however there seemed to be a lot of pomp and circumstance with various levels of wait staff and the transferring of our dishes from one plate to another at table side. Perhaps, for the restaurant owner (s), this justifies high costs, however we all rather skip the theatrics and be served a delicious meal. It was embarrassing to bring people from out of town here and it was a sour end to a special occasion.

I have been a customer for over 30 years but I think the quality of the food has slipped over the last 2 years. The only dishes that remain excellent are the Shanghai dumplings and the Peking duck.
The cocktails are mediocre. Wine list is ok. Service and attitude of staff is very good.

Remember the time when you had great Chinese Food in 1980s and 90s? Well those days are gone. and certainly not alive in Shun Lee Palace anymore. though the décor is still 80s quality. Next time you decide to go there. ask yourself. Is $ 16 for 4 dumplings with medicore quality good enough for me? Or a $ 26 Lunch special. when my place down the block that you order all the time has it in stock for $ 8. Decision is all yours. But if you feel you want to take a trip down memory lane. Old NYC is gone. That’s of course you want to visit Wo Hops on mott street and wait in line.

So I came here to celebrate Chinese Nwe Years, eating some «authentic Pekeing Duck!» Too bad that it wasn’t too authentic. They brought out the duck already carved without any part of the body left just the meat. The authentic Peking duck locations make sure to bring out the full Peking Duck so that they can show that there is no duck being left out. My group of 6 had to order two Peking ducks, which really makes me think that they had skimped out on some of the amounts of duck. As mediocre as the flavor was, it was just so underwhelming.

Ordered the lunch special: steamed dumplings, «amazing» chicken and pistachio ice cream. 2, although tasty, but small pork dumplings. Followed by chicken… that was nowhere near amazing. It was ok. The side of pork fried rice was not even ok. Had a strange flavor, like it wasn’t their freshest batch. Followed by pistachio ice cream, which actually turned out to be strawberry (but that’s kind of a win).
Maybe this place is better for dinner.

Gong hey fat choy!
Igor A. invited me and some of our colleagues to a Chinese New Year lunch at Shun Lee. Usually, my lunches consist of relatively inexpensive take-​out food or something from the surprisingly good cafeteria in my office building, but it was fun to splurge. Yes, Shun Lee is a little gimmicky with the wait staff in captain uniforms, but I truly enjoyed the experience from the elegant china on the table to the incredible gluten-​free (!!!) crispy beef. I am sure I will return for a special occasion, as the price will keep me from making a habit of dining there.

After hearing a number of great things about this place I decided to try it. They originally sat us in the corner by the kitchen and quickly moved us when they realized we weren’t comfortable with the spot. The staff was pleasant and friendly, the food was mediocre at best. Soup dumplings came out frozen. They took them back and quickly offered to buy us drinks. Ordered the Beijing duck which was decent but as a fan of pecking duck house it’s hard to top it.

It is hokey, the waiters are wearing captains uniforms, the place looks like a set from goodfellas, it would not be surprising to see a tuxedo clad don rickles, they have hopelessly dated drinks… pretty much everything in this place is ridiculous — and this is what is so awesome about it.
The food is the same stuff but better quality from the local ghetto bad Chinese place. Yes, you will still feel sick and ashamed of yourself afterwards. Yes, it is much more expensive than it ought to be.
But it is fun and it is yummy and they have «soupy dumplings»
By the way, when the check comes and there is a line for tip and a separate line for captain’s tip don’t worry… exactly 0 people in the world know how to deal with this situation. I tend to just give normal tip and then tack on a few extra dollars for captains tip. I have heard people splitting what a normal tip was ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ and others giving a higher tip to the captain. Really, no one knows what to do and, I am fairly certain, it all goes to the same place anyway — you know, some triad boss.

I ate at Shun Lee Palace this evening after not going for a while
It IS special

Surprisingly good! Delicious food (wonton soup, 3 nut chicken & Hunan Lamb). Pricey, but the special (3 courses for about $ 25) is a great deal! Impeccable service. Beautiful atmosphere. Can hear your own conversation! Highly recommended for a business lunch!
PS — went back again for Peking Duck — very good!

Quickly one of favorite spots. Old school authentic American Chinese establishment. Service is very good.
Spicy & tangy shrimp is very good. The prawns are very fresh and not over cooked. The rice is to perfection –flavored are not overpowering.
Both captain and the waiters are attentive to detail and it feels homey.

I am a fan of this place. Although it is not cheap like most other chinese places, it is still worth the trip. The staff here is awesome and probably as good service as you would get in any place. Also, they have 2 menus, one regular menu and one «chinese» menu. I would suggest getting both for the full Shun Lee experience.
The 2 of us got the duck and the pea shoots. I suggest getting both because they were both fantastic. The duck was so good and I liked that it was wrapped in a little burrito with lettuce. The pea shoots had a nice garlic flavor to them and a staple of many chinese dinners.
A lot of people give this place a poor rating maybe because of the price and the other stuff on the menu we didn’t get but I think it’s worth the trip in my opinion. We left very satisfied.

We came to Shun Lee for a work dinner and I was incredibly disappointed. The service is all it’s cracked up to be — upscale, tremendous waiter to guest ratio, nice presentation of food –including carving and wrapping the duck table side — but beyond that, the food (and the booze) were disappointing. As far as price goes, save your money and go to Chinatown (or anywhere else) thus saving you enough money to eat for the rest of the week!
Let’s start with Apps:
Soup Dumpings — $ 17.50 — seriously? They weren’t very good and ridiculously expensive. You can get 2 orders of much better soup dumplings for the same price from other restaurants and i bet those would actually be served hot. Ribs, cold noodles with sesame sauce, random other dumplings were all just fine — my local take out place makes it all better.
Dinner:
We ordered everything family style and had a nice variety of food. Nothing on our plate stood out, except perhaps the duck. The rest of the food tasted pretty much identical, and no better than food off a lunch deli buffet. Honestly, my local take-​out places are far superior. Really disappointing and surprising for such an icon of a place.
Even the drinks disappointed — i generally drink straight alcohol on the rocks. I know how i feel after one drink, and then after two. I had two drinks here and it was clear the alcohol was weak — barely felt a thing — draw your own conclusions.
I was a guest at this dinner and was still outraged by the price, especially considering the poor meal we ate. We have way too many choices in this city to spend this kind of money on mediocre food.

Shun Lee Palace is venerated in the NYC dining sphere for being one of the best and earliest Chinese restaurants in town. It’s «upscale» which may be a foreign concept as far as Chinese food goes (it sort of is to me) but dining here is memorable. Being a Brooklyn-​native, I expect Chinese to be cheap and cheerful, and this is definitely not the former and just a little bit of the latter. Simply put, it’s expensive, and I am not saying that in a pejorative way, because caveat emptor of course, but I don’t know, I guess I just can’t sync with a restaurant that charges $ 24.50 for chicken with broccoli.
This is five-​star Chinese cuisine (or at least attempting it) if such a thing exists. My two friends and I stopped in recently for dinner to a relatively empty restaurant teeming with solicitous staff. I mean really, the staff-​to-​patron ratio may be like 5:1. The menu itself has lots of familiar favorites and we ordered an assortment to try — Standouts included the Peking Duck (of course) which at $ 50 may make your eyes bug, but it’s a lot of duck and all the typical accoutrements (thin pancakes, hoisin sauce and vegetables to go with) so that alone could be an interesting entrée for two or three to share. We also ordered a couple of typical Chinese sautéed dishes but I hate to say none were memorable… I did enjoy the bok choy, though. I loved that my friend’s favorite part were… the egg rolls.
Being an upscale Chinese restaurant, service and atmosphere are where Shun Lee Palace shines. The wait staff is liveried in «classic» Chinese costume which may or may not be a little patronizing, but it works. Their level of service/​attentiveness is high bordering on extreme, and the restaurant itself is really beautiful. The décor is elevated in the truest sense and it’s a relaxing, but high-​end space. I think my favorite part of Shun Lee Palace is that it seems perfectly acceptable to knock back a martini or two here while eating an egg roll, and yes, that’s precisely what I did.
So like other Midtown stalwarts who mysteriously hang on (I’m looking at you, Le Perigord), perhaps Shun Lee Palace’s secret to success is that it’s a familiar and comfortable place among the ever-​changing NYC restaurant scene.

We held my mom’s 60^th birthday dinner here, expecting a celebratory and slightly upscale dinner occasion. We came for a banquet style dinner for 10.
The main waiter, who «orchestrated» the other waiters was rude, continued to serve bottled water after I insisted several times to have tap water. He managed to charge up to $ 60 in bottled water on my bill. We also brought a cake which we brought our own plastic cake knife for, and the waiter claimed that there would be a cutting fee. I said I would cut the cake myself, and he said that to provide an extra set of plates would be at a cost. We brought it back home with us and celebrated the rest of the evening in my apartment instead.
Then, at the end of the night, he gave me a separate bill for 20% additional tip for him only as a «main waiter». This was in addition to the tip we already gave the wait staff. He explained that it was not mandatory, but that it was expected and that for the «elevated level of service», this is a standard gesture most guests give.
I said no thanks and that my generous tip to the wait staff was already inclusive of his services. He continued to pull me into conversation and away from my party, explaining that it was «standard» of most guests. This was terrible.
I then had no choice but to come out angry on this big occasion and I accused him of sneaking in bottled water in my service, attempting to charge me extra on things, intrusively pacing back and forth around our table, skimping out on the food, and being rude to my family. I was nice enough to tip the staff who had done a decent job, but he was lucky I didn’t make a scene to management that evening.
I wish I could have gotten a refund back for the entire evening. But worst of all, I felt that I let my mom down on her big occasion by bringing her to a place that disappointed.

We came here on a week night during a particularly snowy night, so we had no problem getting seated right away without a reservation. The restaurant was somewhat empty, again, because of the storm. We were quickly seated and our drink came right away.
We opted for the Fillet Mignon and the Chicken with Three Different Nuts. Both were absolutely delicious, but the Fillet Mignon really takes the cake. The meat was extremely tender and the sauce was delicious. There was enough left over for lunch the next day.
Prices were high but not outrageous. I’m not sufficiently familiar with non-​cantonese Chinese food to speak for the authenticity of the food, but it is delicious which is all that matters for me.

Wow, the food in the place is so Americanize that I’m surprise that it still call itself a Chinese restaurant. I was here with some friends for dinner and was greeted promptly and seated right away. Our orders was taken quickly and the food was served in a decent time.
We had the Peking duck, Mo Bo tofu, snow pea tip, seafood fried rice and whole sea bass in ginger and soy sauce. The only thing out of the entire order that was decent was the peking duck. Everything was sub par. I’m amaze that they get away charging so much for food that are below average. The sea bass that was served was overcooked making it extremely chewy. The waiters are nice but unfortunately they were extremely vulgar when they are talking among themselves in Cantonese. Throughout my whole meal I can hear the two waiter standing behind our table talking about their life in an extremely crude manner in Cantonese. I speak the language but I do not look Chinese so they probably assumed that it was safe for them to curse and talk about the other clientele that are in the restaurant.
First and last time for me to this restaurant. It haw potential. The atmosphere is nice but it’s overpriced, sub par food and poor waiter attitude does not make me want to return here.

Overly priced, pretentious, and Americanized (non-​authentic Chinese food).
Came here on a Sunday night for a party of 4 due to my american friend’s recommendation. For the 4 of us with 2 glass of wine for the whole table we ended up paying over $ 270 for dinner.
What!!! I know right. Chinese food done wrong. We got corn soup for everyone with 4 entrees. Fried rice, ho fun, some fish, and beef fish. Nothing stood out to me as I’ve had cheaper and better Chinese food in the city. Could be also of what we ordered since we came with our Americanized friends the food we can get /​try are pretty limited.
Only thing I really like about here is the service is good compared to all the other Chinese restaurants in the city. And also clean.
Will not come back again. Not my cup of tea.

Ah Shun Lee Palace…
It is always a treat to come here while in the Big Apple. It is probably the only Chinese place I would go that is filled with non Asians, but I still love. Most of the clienteles are the affluent New Yorkers. One of my friends who frequent this place each time she and her husband go to NYC, even sat next to Tony Bennet and some other famous people. It is not just a Chinese Restaurant as we know it.
Shun Lee has a sentimental value to me because of a tradition that my brother in law and his family had on Christmas. They would go to see the Nutcrackers at the Lincoln Center and the next day Shun Lee Palace for dinner. I had experienced it with them especially when his mom was still alive and it was sweet. My sis still makes General Tso’s Chicken for one of their Christmas dinners to carry on this Shun Lee tradition even when they can’t go here for Christmas.
The place is unassuming from outside but it is pretty fancy inside. They have captains and waiters that were all dressed impeccable in suits and ties. The host in front, Patrick, was fantastic. He knows my friends I mentioned above from going there for years, and we had a great chat before we got sat at a nice table. The table is covered with two clothes of blue and white, a nice china set accompanied by the setting of forks, spoon, and chop stick on the most intricate and fancy chop stick rest.
The food may not be the most authentic but you don’t come here for it. It is just a different level and type of Chinese food, made well and tasted great but they’re old fashioned and what the Americans would love, with some infusion of specialty dishes here and there.
We stuck with mainstream dishes of Orange Beef, Egg Foo Yung, Yung Chow Fried Rice, Tofu with Mushroom, and Sweet and Sour Pork. All were delicious and we ate it all. I came with my friend and her family last night and they loved the place. The kids ate so much food and they were really pleased to see the kids enjoying the food.
The service was more than attentive and it was definitely high end Chinese. The pricing in the menu would shock you as they’re not cheap and usually are double digit starting with 3 or 4 as the first digit. However, there are some starting with 1 here and there. Our check was high but not bad. We loved the food and everything else. For a once in while patron like me, I am a satisfied customer. So were my friends.
Other than Wing Lei in Vegas, I’d say if you want fancy Chinese and it is fun to have once in a great while, Shun Lee will probably be worth your money. Shun Lee West is also nice, and I have been to both. However, this one is my go to location.