Shan Dong — Restaurant in Oakland

First things first, this place is legit, no questions asked. Fairly small place and sometimes little waiting around lunch time. Good thing is that it closes around 3pm and opens at 5pm for dinner time - cool right? Especially for those who miss the typical lunch hours and is still roaming around after 2pm and is hungry!

Kudos to the friendly staff, complimentary jasmine tea and soup of the day -Thumbs up! Secondly, everything we have tried so far has been truly lovely and not typically oily greasy chinese food so kudos again for being authentic.

The first time we came here we shared shrimp basil and shredded pork with string beans and egg fried rice - delicious but we realised we didn't have the noodles which they are known for (such amateurs right?), back the 2nd time around we didn't make the same mistake again - we went for the NOODLES - we shared their handmade noodles with the spicy shrimp sauce - YUMMY goes beyond words. We also shared a vegetarian delight mix which had all the yummy veggies.

Yes, only two dishes between two people. We were full but not overeaten and didn't feel heavy because the food wasn't oily or greasy.

Another time we went we tried the spicy shrimp chow mein with house noodles, spicy fish in black bean sauce and their dumplings. TRY the dumplings please!

Bathrooms are ok, don't expect nothing great there, enough space to get urself in and out in no time :P. Will be back again for more noodles and try other items on this wonderful menu. Tad expensive for chinese food but again the quality is really good so you get what you pay for. Chinatown in Oakland is far more authentic than Chinatown in SF, so proud to have this place so...

Review is for the beef chow mien with homemade noodles and shandong special dumplings. Both of these were totally serviceable if you just need a good carb heavy Chinese fix but they definitely didn't live up to the hype.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment was the noodles. Their homemade noodles are handcut, rather than hand pulled, as I should have gathered by the woman who was cutting noodles in the front window. Not bad, persay, but no better and perhaps not even as good as I would make at home. They were kind of on the thick side, as well as being quite uneven in size, which resulted in them being slightly underdone. The flavor on the beef chow mien was fine but not much to write home about, a bit under seasoned, no wok hei to speak of and the beef wasn't marinated, it seemed. As a side note, if you're looking for alkaline noodles, this is not your place, at least not for their hand cut version.

The dumplings were of similar quality. Decent, clearly homemade, but nothing that special. They had a pretty thick dumpling skin (which I think is indicative of a northern style dumpling?) and the pork and vegetable filling was fine but maybe slightly undercooked and didn't wow me with it's flavor. The dipping sauce was fine and I think was a soy/black vinegar mix but didn't pay.much attention to it so not totally sure. As with the noodles, these dumplings were either on par with or not as good as what I would make at home so, while the meal was enjoyable and filled a craving, it probably won't be something I find myself craving and, were I to return, I'd probably go for a non-noodle and...

Came here based on the reviews, and it was pretty good! We arrived on a Saturday evening at 7:15 p and was able to park directly in front of the restaurant. The location is typical Oakland Chinatown, not the prettiest nor the cleanest! They were busy with lots of people waiting in front, so we added our name to their online wait list and was prepared to wait 30 minutes. There were a lot of people going into the restaurant picking up to-go/online orders.

One thing that I do is judge an Asian restaurant based on who is actually eating inside the restaurant. For a Chinese restaurant, I prefer to see a lot of Asian people, so I was a little skeptical because it was mostly non-Asian, however, I can see how the word is out regarding this particular place, because people flock towards good food! Not many places do hand pulled noodles well, but Shan Dong is an exception!

My GF is vegetarian and can't do soy sauce so we were limited, however, we ordered the vegetarian chow mein with the fresh hand pulled noodles (I just added soy sauce separately to my portion), scallop egg foo young, and the crispy onion pancake. Everything was delicious! The pancake was full of scallions and perfectly crispy... egg foo young was probably my favorite with the sauce on the side, and the veggie chow mein was nice and chewy with great texture. The portions were generous for the price. We were absolutely stuffed and needed to to-go boxes after our meal.

Such a great experience with hand pulled noodles, and we will definitely be back! No pictures, as we were too excited and hungry...