Shanghai Cafe

The best fake chicken in the city but I don’t think all of it’s vegan so make sure other than that the spring rolls and hot and sour are to good to pass up

We love this place! My boyfriend and I eat here once or twice a week. We like the bbq pork egg roll vermicelli noodle salad, the vegetarian curry chicken vermicelli noodle salad, house phở, vegetarian spring rolls and sweet and sour vegetarian chicken. I have been going here for the past 16 years and the quality of food has been consistent. The prices are very reasonable. Service is spotty sometimes, but not a big deal because food and prices make up for it. It can feel a little dive-​ish, but that’s what we love about it. The owner will often come and check on you, and she is super nice.

I want to give this place more stars but our service was awful. Food was quite good but server rushed us to take order, then never saw him again. Had to flag down bus boys to get check and boxes for our leftovers.

Looooove everything I’ve tried here. Vegetarian spring and egg rolls are divine! The phở is delicious and filling :)

Would have five stars if this restaurant wasn’t dirty. It really is. Management, take a couple early mornings and do a deep clean, then five stars will appear.
Otherwise, love their vegetarian vermicelli soup and the curry soup w fake chicken, reminiscent of phở. But I love their lemon chicken and if I’m feeling like an extra glutton i order their deep fried egg rolls.
Their spring rolls are hit and miss.

For sure one of my favorite places to eat. The food is incredible, and so fast it’s almost waiting at the table for you as you walk in.

I frequent this place the most in Salt Lake, mostly because of their cheap/​reasonable pricing. The serving sizes are good, and the food tastes good too. I’m glad they offer brown rice with no extra charge.
I wish they would just totally eliminate MSG from their cooking ingredients though. Their servers tell me they don’t really add much of it onto the actual dishes, but they use «a little bit» of it for certain sauces and other food items that’s already pre-​cooked. This gives me and my family occasional headaches, depending on how much of it we consume, so we tend to avoid Chinese places (like Little World) that heavily use MSG. Shanghai Café should just avoid it since they’re trying to promote healthier eating «for [a] longer life,» and MSG is classified as a neurotoxin (regardless of how ‘safe’ the FDA labels it and other toxic substances that they have recalled their safety approvals after recognizing their harmful effects later on).

Update time! This place is genuinely filthy! The booths, the condiment bottles, booster seat and high chairs. Disgusting!!! High chairs are all busted and don’t have any working fasteners to keep your little one in. If you dare put your child in the filth that haven’t been wiped down once. I have been here enough that the servers should acknowledge you but they never smile at you and our server sat on his phone before i went over and asked him for a drink refill. The older man literally didn’t even respond to my «excuse me excuse me» 2 feet away. Really? This place uses MSG because right after I ate the Thai green curry I got one those headaches. People sensitive to MSG know what I am talking about, its awful! For how filthy the place is I wonder what the kitchen looks like. The lady owner sits in the first booth doing accounting or something should budget some money for a scrub down before the health department finds her in violation. It’s funny how she is always decked out in her diamonds and Jade jewelry and wants to steal my Louis but doesn’t have pride of ownership. Stay away people, I warned you. With so many other places doing vegi meat, why go here?

I ordered the Vegetarian lemon chicken and tofu… It was great! The portion is large enough to be able to have leftovers for lunch the next day. The food also came fast! It was barely a ten minute wait, if that. However, I will never sit down to eat in that restaurant ever again. I’ll only order to-​go.
The restaurant was filthy. There were spots of dried food, probably flicked there from people slurping their soup noodles, covering the blinds and window, and back glass panel of our booth. The highchair that was brought out for my daughter was disgusting. It was completely sticky, and the straps were stiff from old food. Even the plastic thingy they brought the check in was covered in crumbs and sticky spots. No thank you!

The food here is exceptional. The BBQ Pork in my vermicelli salad was among the best I’ve had, even counting the month I spent in Hong Kong and Beijing. It is tender and succulent with a jaw-​dropping smokiness that continues to unfold long after it’s eagerly swallowed down.
Beyond the BBQ pork, the ingredients in the dishes we tried were fresh and lively, with each dish well-​balanced in flavor, texture and temperature. The spring rolls have a great crunch while still maintaining a flakey lightness.
Service is spotty, but earnest. You may have to flag down your waiter for example, but when they’re at your table they are knowledgeable, helpful, and will quickly follow-​through. Your food will come out quickly and it will be piping hot or to the correct temp.
My only complaint is a piece of plastic bag I found in my salad; almost a deal-​breaker for most restaurants but something I will happily overlook once given the superb food.

It’s not very clean and the service is always terrible. That being said, I’ve been going back for years because the food is amazing and reasonably priced. The food always comes out to the table quickly, but then, more times than not, we never see our server again! Drinks never get refilled. But, we keep going back because the vegetarian sweet and sour chicken is delicious ! Also cream cheese wontons and the vegetarian spring rolls with peanut sauce are
amazing! So if you want your food fast and to be left alone (totally and completely) this is the place for you!

my wife her mother, and I were out shopping today and got hungry. I always go for Asian food if given the option. We were right around the corner from Shanghai, so that’s where we went.
I have eaten here many times usually mid afternoon. I come here because I have a few vegetarian friends and Shanghai meets their needs as well as mine.
Today we had sweet and sour pork, almond chicken and Hong Kong style beef. Everything was absolutely delicious. As always.
The décor is ok, I think it was probably beautiful twenty years ago. Now the place just looks dingy.
The service here seems to always be lacking. The staff is knowledgeable. The food comes out quickly. My glass never went empty. I just don’t ever feel satisfied with the service, I guess they just don’t seem to care. That being said I still continue to eat there.
Overall, we had a great meal as always and paid just over thirty bucks. This place is great for vegetarians and meat eaters alike.

We ordered the vietnamese veg curry, and an assorted seafood dish in a taco salad shell (was supposed to be some type of Vietnamese crêpe). The only good thing I can say about this restaurant, based on one visit, is the server and owner were nice. So that’s how I’m going to leave it.

This is one of my favorite places to eat, ever. It’s not fancy, but the food sure makes it divine! They offer both vegetarian and meat dishes with the veggie meat being one made in house, the best tasting one I’ve encountered!
I’ve been eating here for more than 15 years and I’ve always had great service and love the family who owns and runs it. It’s always nice being greeted with care upon arrival. The timely service is nice, especially when you’re famished, it’s always quick service and the food is always hot and fresh!
The spring rolls are great for those avoiding fried foods, otherwise, the veggie eggrolls and cream cheese wontons are to die for!
They have an extensive menu, something for everyone. Mostly, they offer Chinese and Vietnamese dishes, however, they also have curry dishes and soup pots among an array of other choices.
If you’re tired and need some energy, don’t miss out on their Vietnamese iced coffee, it’ll be sure to kick your butt in gear!

It saddens me to do so, because I love this place so much and I crave it. But the last two times I’ve been there, my vegan menu items have had meat in them. I ordered the vegetarian phở and found chunks of pork fat in it. They told me it was the vegan chicken but trust me, I know what bacon smells like and I know the texture of gristle and that was definitely fat. Last night I got the vegan schezwan and today, while eating my leftovers, I find a chunk of chicken. It’s really disturbing to find that after you’ve already eaten half of your meal. So sad to say it but I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Shanghai any time soon.

I have found out recently that I am a fan of the Americanized Chinese cuisine. Shanghai has the standard fare of Chinese food that we Americans crave and rave about. But they do have some additional options that some do not. 3 pages of their menu are dedicated to vegetarian dishes. They looked mighty tasty too! Then there are 2 pages dedicated to the standard beef, pork, and chicken dishes. The final pages have Thai and Vietnamese options.
Food review in a moment, first let’s address the parking and ambiance situation. The parking sucks. Plain and simple. Just sucks. They share the lot with everyone else in the strip mall. There are 3 Salt Lake County justice/​court facilities within this complex. The parking just is awful, at least during the day. At night it could be a different story. The inside of the restaurant was kept clean but there is certainly nothing spectacular to shout about with the décor.
The food here is good. It really is. It is flavorful, temperature appropriate, and comes out relatively quick. For the lunch hour we were in and out, including travel back to the office, in an hour. I tried a Thai dish, my friend the sesame chicken. We shared the bowl of rice. The food was plenty to fill up on with enough left over for lunch the next day. The price really is reasonable too.
I enjoyed it enough that I would go back, I did not enjoy it enough that it will be my one and only Chinese joint in the valley.

A vegetarian dream. In fact, I LOVED their fake chicken long before I was a vegetarian. They have a lot of meat items also. That fake chicken is seriously crack though!

I came here forever ago and remember it being a lot worse than it is. I also don’t think this review is a fair assessment of the restaurant as I only got take out and one item from the place. Food quality was about a 3 – 3.5. Noodles and the «stir fry» the noodles came with were seperate, kind of annoying that I had to mix them up myself. The sauce was flavorful. The portions were good. The reason I bumped them up to a 4 is because the fake chicken actually tasted really similar to real chicken and I love that they offer veggie options.
Rating could be lowered if I were to eat in, especially given that the restaurant smelled like a bowling alley from the 90s. Interested to try other options on the menu/​see what the Shanghai Café experience is all about. If anything, it’s a Chinese restaurant on State Street that’s been around forever WITHOUT 71 health code violations (hint hint wink wink)

Shanghai café has the best fake chicken EVER! Prices are really good. Our favorite is the vermicelli noodle salad with the spring roll… Deliciousness! Food always comes out speedy fast. Service is good, although curt. Portions are also fairly big!
Last time I was there I ventured out of my regular vermicelli noodle salad and ordered a Vietnamese curry. Very flavorful! Kids loved the fake chicken, and we’re not even vegetarian!
Highly recommended!

Cream cheese wontons are a little on the sweet side– not expecting that. The General Tsao’s chicken was really good but lacked the spice we come to expect with this dish and we ordered the chicken chow mein which we weren’t too crazy about.
We were served by a highschool/​college aged male and an older male server. The older server was a let down; smoking outside, disappearing for long stretches of time, and on his cell phone when he was around. The young server on the other hand was a delight. He was attentive and when he made a mistake of forgetting to add the egg rolls we ordered, he asked us if we still wanted them. We declined to save him the trouble but after we paid our bill he came out with egg rolls, free of charge.
We will definitely be coming back.