New Shanghai Westfield Mt Gravatt — Restaurant in Brisbane City

My whole family (11 of us) dined in for dinner on 09/04/2025 Wednesday night to celebrate a birthday. When we first arrived only one person was at the bar counter and told us we were table ‘29’, she didn’t bother to show us where the table was.

We then waited approximately 20 minutes for a waiter to come take our order. When the kids started to get restless I decided to walk up to the counter to order our food. The lady then said that we have to use the QR code on the table. I fail to understand why she did not just take our order when I was at the counter or why that was not explained to us prior.

After ordering our first dish, the braised pork belly, came out in this extravagant pot that was deceivingly small but worse it was luke warm. A dish that comes out in less than 5 minutes begs the question was it freshly cooked or a batch from lunch sitting on the stove until someone ordered it.

The next few dishes were the dumplings. We ordered pork and chives and pork and Chinese cabbage. I was startled that they cooked the exact same dumplings I have in my freezer. Same shape, same taste, but $15 instead of the usual $8 from my local Asian supermarket. Not only that but the skin wasn’t fully cooked through.

After this the mains arrived. We ordered Shanghai stir fry noodles with Veg and pork, another with duck, and shepherds purse rice cake. This time they were freshly cooked however I could literally fit all the noodles and rice cake in my hand. Pork was barely present, same as the duck, and they charged $17-$20 for such a small serving. We ended up ordering another noodle and rice cake because the first serving was not enough.

The last few dishes were stir fry vegetables and braised tofu with seafood. Admittedly the dish of the night was the stir fry vegetables. Well seasoned, fresh garlic, and hot. However the braised tofu was cold, under seasoned, and very watery / bland.

Overall it is sad to see that a well established restaurant chain such as new Shanghai has gone downhill. If the service was present, food was seasoned and hot (in some cases simply cooked), dumplings were not something I can buy from the supermarket, and the portions were sizeable enough for the money they charge I would...

Have previously ordered takeaway via Ubereats and enjoyed the food. Had never dined in previously, but did so tonight for a work Christmas dinner. Had made a reservation in advance.

The service was very poor. First off several drink orders didn't arrive even though they'd been added to the bill and others who placed orders afterwards had their drinks delivered to the table. Our group needed to chase up wait staff in order to eventually get these bought to the table.

Two of the beers that did come out were completely unrefrigerated and warm so we had to ask the waitress to exchange them for cold ones...

The food, while very nice, arrived in an oddly staggered and delayed fashion. First appetisers and a couple of mains arrived over the course of about 30 minutes, along with rice for the mains. The other mains were nowhere to be seen. About an hour after this we get one more main, which was eaten with now cold rice...

After another 20 minutes I went up to the counter and asked that they please just cancel the remaining dish that still hadn't arrived, as by this point people were getting ready to leave. I was assured it would be taken off the bill.

Now this part is kind of my own fault. The bill came to the table and the total was $390, it also noted the item that had been voided. It's one bill per table so I had people working out what they owed and transferring me money etc. When I went to settle up I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have in my haste to get it sorted and say my goodbyes to the group. It was only after the fact that I realised I'd been charged $420, so I was in fact charged for the main that we never received... that was supposedly taken off the bill... by this point we'd left, and I stupidly didn't keep a copy of the itemised receipt so I figured no point trying to contest it.

Honestly the whole experience was really sub par and I cannot recommend eating here. Food is nice, but poor dine-in experience overall and really annoyed that I was charged $30 for a dish we didn't receive....

TLDR: free drinks for a 5 star review, with food that is great.

Ambience: the place has a nice distinctive feel of an older less familiar era of Shanghai. The place is dark, cosy and inviting.

Service: contrasted with the vibe of the place is the speedy and polite service, along with a QR code menu ordering system which was intuitive and easy to use - probably one of the easiest I've used.

Ordered: Crab and Pork-meat xialong bao - while generally delicious, the filling could have used more soup and the wrapper could have been thinner. It also was not served with the traditional vinegar and ginger dipping sauce.

Pan-friend pork buns - these were excellent. The bun was light and fluffy with a base that was crackly-crispy - and wonderful textural achievement. The filling was generous and moist - probably my favourite dish of the evening.

Steamed chinese brocolli with oyster sauce - this was fine, though perhaps a bit heavy handed with the oyster sauce.

Salted-egg yolk fried tofu - this was also a pleasant surprise, with crispy tofu that remained crispy throughout the meal. The salted-egg yolk was perhaps on the subtler side, though present.

Crispy skin chicken - while the meat was dry, the skin was crisp and the accompanying dipping sauce made up for the lack of moisture.

Soft-shell crab (not pictured) - this was stock standard in regards to fried soft-shell crab. It was delicious and I was pleased that the frozen-freezer-flavour was absent.

So over all, the place gets 4 stars. The food was great, though there were noticeable quibbles with most...