Shanghai 21 — Restaurant in New York

One sunny, blustery winter day, three friends and I came here in search for a wonderful authentic Chinese meal. This place was anything but that. We walked in to a bustling restaurant, and were seated relatively quickly. The interior is bright and cheery and decently decorated, and the menu, while riddled with common “fake” Chinese staples like orange chicken, did have seemingly enough authentic Chinese variety. So why did I rate this place one star? Let me explain. The truth is shocking! We ordered two dim sums and three dishes. The steamed buns and shrimp dumplings were satisfactory but not very special, passing the bare minimum perhaps. However, the other dishes were extremely disappointing. The gan bian si ji dou (green string beans) were not crunchy as they are supposed to be and not flavored, and the fried squid was flavorless and over breaded. The duck had an extremely overpowering star anise taste and was slightly off-putting. I tend to enjoy all types of food, and can still find lots of satisfaction within varying qualities of food, so while this food was quite mediocre and could have earned this restaurant a healthy three stars, what happened next brought it down to only one in my heart. My friend had her foot on her chair unintentionally when the waiter walked by and dismissively told her to put her foot down. While we understand that this is a perfectly justified request, the manner in which it was communicated was extremely derogatory and caused my beloved friend severe emotional distress. When I asked my friends how they felt about the restaurant, they told me they were “flabbergasted,” “disgusted,” and “mortified.” Then came the worst of the worst. They applied a near 20% service charge, and still expected us to tip. This restaurant ruined the entire trip for our group, and our faces, once filled with childish expectance and a zest and zeal and life became mere vestiges of what the once were, a hollow shell devoid of emotion. While the atmosphere of this location may at first lure you in and make you think it is a wonderful authentic Chinese restaurant, you will soon realize once you eat here that this place is neither authentic, nor Chinese, and has left a devastating impact on our lives. I highly recommend anyone reading this review considering this restaurant to go someplace else. Possibly top 5 worst restaurants I’ve been...

I must preface this by writing that we didn't order dumplings and perhaps, if that's all you go for, you may have a different experience...

We only ordered a General Tso's chicken and an order of spring rolls. The General Tso's was ready in about 2 minutes, so I knew it wasn't fresh, but let my eating buddy decide, who said it doesn't taste right. I tasted it and the dark questionable looking meat was chewy, and clearly older. I took pics of it, as you can even tell by looking inside without the sauce covering it. The rice was borderline stale, and the broccoli was not properly steamed. Everything was probably sitting in the back ready to go, but the chicken was just reheated. It just wasn't good at all.

After having such great and fresh filled spring rolls from the vegetarian place next door that we reviewed, we were hopeful that the vegetarian spring rolls we also ordered from here was good too, but no, these were like any frozen, mush same filling, as a 1 star fast food Chinese place...

We had a difficult time getting water...from anyone. After your food is dropped off, no one comes back to the table, or even close to it...my spoon had leftover food on it and I wiped it off with a napkin, and then just decided not to use one at all, bc it would take too much time to find someone to ask for another one...I was just happy I didn't order the soup ..or anything else for that matter.

The ambience and decor is forgettable. I may be tempted to come back just to try the dumplings but I don't trust what they are doing back there in...

When we lived in NYC years ago, we ate here often. My children and whole family loves xiao long bao. We've tried the neighboring Joe's Shanghai, but we love this place more. They're both very good. I've had the best xiao long bao at the original Ding Tai Fung in Taiwan and Taipei 101 several times, and Shanghai Manor is what I would consider one of the best in NYC.

We always order xiao long bao, stir fry rice cakes (Shanghai style), spicy wonton, and try other dishes. Almost everything we've tried was yummy. We don't order the typical Chinese American takeout food items here. You can just go to Panda Express or another Chinese takeout place if you want Chinese American style takeout food. You come here for the authentic stuff!

The service is typical busy Chinese restaurant style - you call them when you need them, and they'll bring what you need.

We usually took a bus or walked here from Battery Park City. It's not easy to find parking in Chinatown NYC. If you have a car, you can try driving around to less busy streets to find street parking, which we've done before - and it takes a lot of time circling around the streets before we could find a parking spot. But this restaurant is worth it.

Note: I can't speak for how the restaurant food is lately, since I don't know if their menu is still the same and if their chef and management...