John's Shanghai

My food was excellent! I got shrimp and peaches and it was excellent. I highly recommend this place. My date and I had a wonderful meal and it was a wonderful environment as well. Two thumbs up!

Several of the same poor reviews is not a coincidence. The food was extremely disappointing here...reheated, not fresh, whatever it is, its just not good - plain and simple. There are much better places in Manhattan, even if youre unfortunate enough to be in Times Square.

This place calls itself "authentic", which can only be taken to mean that it is "authentic/geniune" in its "efforts" to be an authentic Chinese restaurant as the dishes it serves are far from authentic. The triple flavour dumplings taste as if they had been frozen for a long time, not fresh at all. The shrimp fried rice is covered with soy sauce (most probably the non-naturally brewed kind but the chemically derived black water), the shrimp tasted funny and soft and the green peas are hard. The only edible food is the Shanghai juicy buns but 1 out of 3 is pathetic in any evaluation. Bad to the bone.

I've ordered here many many times before and have never been so disappointed. Sure, restaurants have their off days, but today's food was a complete insult. I had 6 orders in total, none came close to mediocre. General Tso's chicken was just a pile of red chicken, no broccoli on the side or anything. Chicken and Brocolli was sweet. Double Sauteed Pork was sweet rather than spicy, and pork slices were too thick. Thought that was bad, here's the icing on the cake. Soy Sauce Chicken over rice, they had the nerve to give us re-cooked chicken. I'm Chinese, I know! It looks like leftover soy sauce chicken reheated in the steamer. The skin on the chicken had shrunken a bit and the color from the soy sauce had come off already.

Ordered the beef with double scallion pancake and chow mei fun from here. They were definitely fast with the cooking of the food but I was disappointed when I brought it back to work to eat. The beef with double scallion pancake is not done like authentic Shanghainese food. Pancake was cut into 4 rolled pieces and deep fried. Tiny sliver of beef inside each with a mere touch of scallion. Very cheap with the ingredients for a dish that costs $7. Next, the chow mei fun had very little taste (no salt or soy sauce used to cook this?) and there were almost as many onion slices as mei fun noodles. Perhaps other dishes are better, but also not bad to try other places other than this place.

This place does a great job on the basics like Sesame Chicken, and cooks chef's specials like Mango Prawns to perfection. I ate there my first night on a recent visit to NY, and I was craving it the rest of the trip. Service is very prompt, efficient and friendly. I will be back.

John's Shanghai is an excellent value. The food is of high quality, the service very good and, unlike many Chinese restaurants, effort has been made to make it attractive. For my taste, it could be quieter but polished wood floors keep the noise level bearable cloth tablecloths and glass cases displaying Chinese artifacts make it quite pleasant. It's rare to find a reasonably-priced theater district restaurant that consistently gives good value, food and service.