Shanghai Tea House

Good food - try the golden eggplant or the twice-cooked pork, or any of the extensive range of dumplings. There’s a tea menu too, if that’s your bag. Decor is nice enough but not what you’d call plush. Staff are all very friendly but be prepared to grab their attention.

First and last time I will ever enter this place. I’m the MOST POSITIVE PERSON ON THE PLANET… I felt physically sick when I left. The hot sour soup was dissgussstinggg… like a bowl of gravy with tofu floats, inedible… then came the papaya salad… the sauce was saturating the dish… I had to let it drip to even eat it… service was awful… so bad…. I cannot believe this place is still running… I have run a restaurant with 19 staff so I do know what I’m talking about… U actually had to buy a coffee elsewhere to get the taste out of my mouth…. Managers …. Change your attitude to customers, staffing, food … learn how to serve!

Thought this place would be a nice little spot to have lunch after a long day of shopping. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The food was underwhelming. The pan fried dumplings were drenched in oil and the plate had a circular oil ring which indicated it was dumped onto the plate straight from the pan. Given the amount of oil the dumplings had no flavour, not sure how they achieved this. The fried rice was under cooked. We tried the fried ice cream and it tasted very bad. The service was poor as well. Never going back.

My son had food poisoning twice after eating food from here so big no no
Never coming back.

Disgusting food! Send the food inspector in! This place is grotty. Fish undercooked, fried rice oily/bland. Found hair tangled in scrambled egg, yuck!

Bought takeaway tonight, 21 oct.
Disappointing. S&P squid was just batter deepfry, no salt and pepper flavour. The plum duck was dry and not much flavour. There was nothing chinese about the mix veg salad, could have made at home.
Was costly, $75.
Prob won't go there again.

Always great food and service. Very quick from order to plate. Honey Jasmin ice tea is amazing. Been here quite a few times over the past few years and always been great.

Fantastic food, service got off to a bad start when we asked for 4 pieces instead of 3 because four of us were dining. They righted everything in the end & we enjoyed great service.

Went in with my 9 month old daughter. They were so accomodating. Provided a high chair, bowl and spoon for her and lots of happy chats. My mother in law and I both agreed that the food was fresh and delicious. Very friendly staff too. Will be back for sure.

I am a vegetarian. I only buy there vegetarian dumplings. They were sometimes not great but mostly good and sometimes very good. Last Thursday we had a takeout and my usual meal had a little strange taste to it. To mu horror I found a small part of chicken feet in my meal, with a claw. Why? Did they boiled them in a chicken brew? Why? I thought a vegetarian meal should be vegetarian. Needless to say, they lost a customer.

Had high hopes for a lovely rainy Sunday afternoon lunch here but found the food extremely bland. Ordered seafood hokiein noodles which had absolutely no flavour & were cut up, the sizzling garlic prawns barely had any garlic and the pad Thai noodles we sent back as all we could taste was tomato ketchup. It was awful. They also bring out the courses one at a time & we had to ask for them all to come at the same time otherwise we’d be left eating steamed rice at the end which has happened to us before at this restaurant. The lemon chicken was nice as was the salt & pepper eggplant although the salt & pepper on it was missing! So all in all for the price a very disappointing meal & it will take a lot to get us back here!

Small portions with higher price end. That's why I gave 3 stars. You gotta know what to order from this place as not all dishes are at restaurant qualities. Staff are also very stingy on
serviettes!

Look, honestly the food was reasonable, I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could. I went with a total of 5 people so we were able to try a fair bit of the yum cha menu.
Steamed dumplings were quite nice, shallot pancakes delicious. The battered and fried stuff was a little heavy on the batter, but there was a little five spice in the batter (I think) for the chicken and it tasted great. The steamed pork rib bits were a bit weird, but the black beans gave them a nice flavour. I didn't try them but others rated the bbq pork buns as average and a bit light on the filling. Fried rice was just okay. The wonton noodle soup had well cooked noodles, totally average stock, and the wontons had very little filling
Where the venue falls down for me is being treated as a bit of a guai lo, but for Blue Rinse Village I guess that's par for the course. No chopsticks initially offered, chipped plates and bowls, but the kicker was eating off flat plates.
As yum cha fiends know, picking up the small bowl and using chopsticks to noisily slurp the last bits of food and scoop them into your mouth without making a mess is a core component of the yum cha experience, which this place deprives you of. If management change their dish selection I'll immediately switch my review to 4 stars.

We've eaten there before and after covid now. So it's been a while in between visits. The food has stayed the same standard. The flower teas are still nice. I can recommend anything on the menu really and the service is fast.

Had dinner here last night for the first time and it was lovely.beautiful looking place the food was magnificent the staff were excellent

We’ve eaten here for lunch on a few occasions
The service here is great the food is spasmodic- today a table of 4 - 3 meals were fine but my noodles were an embarrassment- I said “ I didn’t order an entree size and was avoided afterwards with arrogance - which really got my back up - seriously- a hand full of Hokkein noodles and a few slices of chicken doesn’t cut the mustard especially if you’re a Chinese restaurant!

This was one of my favourites but in recent times the service and food has gone downhill. Had lunch there today and that will be the last time. Had to wait 30 minutes for a plate of noodles even though only about half the tables were occupied. Noodles were badly over cooked. As for the service, you couldn't complain about it.there wasn't any! Such a shame

I don't know if they changed the staff after those poor reviews given to this place in the past. I visited this place a month ago and the food were all pretty decent. I won't lie and say they are brilliant or something, they are not THERE yet but definitely not bad. The satay chicken skewers are fried perfectly, not the most tender ones but still quite juicy. The chicken noodle sitr fry is pretty good as well, actually one of my favorites among all the food I tried. The only one thing I would complain about the food is the jug of iced milk tea is a bit small for the price, I mean it is just water, tea packs and milk, surely the restaurant can offer a bigger jug?
The food aside, the customer service is really on point. I am carrying a toddler with me when I visited last time and for some reason, my baby is really cranky that day. Yet the waiter is really patient with him and provided us a really enjoyable experience. I didn't really think of giving a review but I just feel like this restaurant deserves at least 4 stars in the reviews. Idk, considering the poor reviews that are about customer services are posted over a year ago, maybe they have hired new staffs.

A nice option for lunch in the Burnside area. The location is beautiful! On a sunny day the tables outside are the apt place to enjoy the afternoon. The ambience is pleasing too.

Not been here before and booked a table for our grandaughters 25th birthday and our 49th Wedding anniversary. First impressions of restaurant was of uncleared tables and I couldn't see a QR check-in when we entered or an internal one. I was directed to an exterior door that we had not entered through and I also couldn't see any hand sanitiser. We opted for Yum Cha. It maybe our choices of Bao Buns steamed dumplings and fried dumplings followed by a shared plate of tofu with vegetables weren't the best options, as they all turned out to be flavourless. From our point of view very disappointing.