Shanghai Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Bowral

A time capsule of 1970s Chinese restaurant chic, Shanghai Chinese in Bowral, hides behind a modest shopfront notable only for its glowing yellow signage by night. We enter through a steady stream of people bearing sawn-off cardboard boxes of takeaway. More wait inside a latticework vestibule surrounded by plastic flowers, the opposing counter bearing more flowers, complimentary toothpicks and White Rabbit candies. Those who dine-in are rewarded with a spectacular dining room dominated by two large lightbox artworks, one depicting a hedonistic scene. Gold-edged red chairs encircle double-clad tabletops, set so the top tablecloth—inevitably stained with soy and other sauces—can be whipped away when you leave.

If you’re here to recapture your first restaurant memory, prawn toast ($16.50/6) should be a given. Dragged through sweet chilli sauce, the six triangles of sesame-crusted toast taste like memory. Frozen green peas, diced ham and omelette still stud the fried rice ($10/small) here, though we up the ante—feeling rich because we took advantage of three buck BYO—to take ours with a topping of king prawns ($17.80/small).

Shandong chicken ($32.80) eats more like the Chinese food we’ve come to expect in the Sydney CBD: tangy with decent heat from scattered birdseye chillies secreted between pieces of bone-in, crisp-skinned bird. Fillet steak Shanghai style ($26.80) delivers a generous stack of tenderised and beaten steaks interspersed with still-crisp carrots, shallots and sweet curls of onion in chilli bean. I like this dish a lot, and I bet it’d be great as leftovers the next day. Choy sum ($17.80) with a polarising oyster sauce rounded out our selections: nothing the application of on-table soy sauce and requested chilli sauce couldn’t fix. Dots of both sauces hitting the tablecloth was...

Came here on Mother’s Day as a party of 4 without a reservation and was lucky enough to be greeted by a friendly waitress who told us a group was just about to leave and they could slot us in. We were then told that a cancellation came through and could sit us right away. The small square table provided was in the corner right next to the door leading to the toilets and more suited to a couple rather than a table for 4. The table of 6 beside us was leaving so we asked the other staff member if we could move to allow more space as we were planning to order the banquet to which she firmly said no, that is a table for 6 and abruptly walked away not considering the request any further. We felt our request was reasonable however we were left feeling rudely spoken to but waited for the food to arrive. After ordering the tea and water, there was hardly any space left and once the soup came out, the table was full. The table next to us was still empty so we decided to just pay for what had come out and eat elsewhere. The customer service is well below what we were expecting and we were left feeling very disappointed. Would not recommend based on...

We went there on the day of the Tulip Festival at Bowral. It was quiet at first we came in, but can be heard their phone order kept coming up as we sitting down and when waiting for our food. We ordered mixed entree , roast duck, Singapore noodles, and choy sum with mushroom sauce, large boiled rice. 10 minutes passed, the mixed entree came. 45 minutes after the food came. They were delicious. Staffs were really good. I saw from the back room (where toilet is), the uncle chef was doing really well keeping up with the orders that coming in like tsunami. As by this time all the dining tables were full. Bravo uncle.keep up the good work.

Toilets were clean, maybe have some paper towels would be more...