Shanghai Blues

Fantastic food, superb atmosphere and excellent service. We are definitely going back.
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Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Sunday, July 13, 2008

Two of us went for dinner at this restaurant last night and had an absolutely fantastic time. Friendly and attentive staff, amazing food and stylish surroundings. I absolutely could not find a single fault with this restaurant - I'll definitely be going back.
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Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 7
Thursday, July 03, 2008

We booked this restaurant for a hen night and were a group of 9. The restaurant entrance and decor is very grand and smart, though the inside lighting is very dark.

When we arrived we gave the name we booked our table under and were directed to a bar area and given menus, after a while we asked about our table... they had not realised we had booked (even though we said this when we arrived). We were then taken to our table and were very disappointed to be sat in a small, dark and dingy room that was like a conference room, it did not have any of the ambiance or decor that the main restaurant had, we felt like we were being hid away because we were a large group.

We opted for the set menu which was around £38 a head. The portions were very small, on the starters there was literally 1 portion per person, for example 1 spring roll per person. The food was of nice quality, but for the price was not worth it and most of us left feeling hungry.

The drinks were absolutely extortionately priced, £36 for a bottle of Pinot wine. We also noticed that they kept topping up glasses with mineral water even though we had not asked for this, we requested we did not want water and was told we would be charged for what had already been consumed, only tap water was free.

When the bill came we were all pretty reluctant to be paying the £63 each that it worked out to be, and we all agreed that it was over priced for what we had. The service charge was listed as 12.5% discretionary. We told our waitress we did not want to pay the discretionary 12.5% (another £65) and asked her to remove this and we would leave our own tip. We were told it was restaurant rules that we had to pay it and if we didn’t it came out of her wages. We highlighted the definition of discretionary and she reluctantly removed it from our bill.

Over all, was disappointed with the restaurant, price and food. If I was to eat here again it would be as a couple only and I would not drink alcohol or have them pour me glasses of water I didn't ask for.
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Belinda
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 4
Thursday, July 03, 2008

Went to Shanghai Blues last night to celebrate my 30th !!

Loved it - gorgeous decor and relaxing soft live jazz, we had dinner and then got seated upstairs on the sofa for our desserts.

The food was great - delicious dim sum, sweet & sour pork inside a pineapple shell, and egg fried rice wrapped in a pancake!

The dessert was to DIE for - chocolate pudding with jasmin ice cream - the most Delicious choc dish I have ever tasted!!!! Worth every penny of the £10 it cost me!

However, my friends thought the drinks a little too pricey - £7 for a glass of wine, £8 for a cocktail, £4.50 for a bottle of beer and even £3.50 just for water!!!

We shared one bottle of wine between 4 for £25 which was still a stretch.

Would've preferred cheaper options on the drinks list!!

Our bill was £234 which included a £24 service charge - it may have been a 30th birthday, but that's still alot for 4 people! (I wouldn't mind myself, but I think my friends did!!)
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Rosemary Moore
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 4
Sunday, March 02, 2008

Went to Shanghai Blues for Valentines 2008. Absolutely brilliant! We thought we would have to choose things from the selected valentines menu but was then told we would recieve everything... The food was fresh, hot and full of flavour. The portions were good and very filling and the staff were very attentive.

Will definately be going there again!
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Charlene, London
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I've eaten here twice. First was a business lunch and that was great. Pretty good service and tasty food.

The second time I took my girfriend and the whole experience was shambolic.

We booked a table for 8, but were told to sit in the bar to wait and they would serve us some drinks which was fine. Except they sat us at a table full of old drinks. Half an hour later the table had still not been cleared and no one had talen an order fro drinks so I had to go to a waitress , ask her to clear the table and get us some drinks. An hour later and we were still in the bar. I then asked if we could sit at our table and a few minutes later we were talen there.

Ordered our food and our first course came was tasted good. Half an hour after finishing I had to again ask them to clear the table.

They also took our wine away so we could top up our glasses. Later I had to go and ask another waitress to fill our glasses, which she did, but with someone elses wine!!

They ended up giving us a bottle of wine for free and appologised for the service, and from then on they were over attentive and just irritated us.

All we could do was laugh. The food was quite nice, but I didn't care by that point.

Really wouldn't bother
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Mark
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 0
Sunday, January 27, 2008

The decor is trendy chinese (dark woods, almost pitch black - you've seen it before, but still very nice), the food is pretty good, the atmosphere is quite buzzy - almost too buzzy on a friday night, but the service is bad.

worth going to for the food - dim sum and other dishes are well made and very tasty, but don't be surprised if you end up having to wait 45 minutes for the table you booked to become available.

food wasn't overly expensive for the quality, but drinks added a fair whack on top
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tom
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 6
Saturday, January 26, 2008

I have rarely, if ever experienced such a shambolic evening as the disaster known as Shanghai Blues New Year's Eve Gourmet Menu. The food varied from mediocre to inedible.

I'd rather not recount the gory details, only that we all felt ripped off especially by the dessert that consisted of a small portion of sub-standard fruit accompanied by some kind of sugary confection that was rubbery, brightly coloured and tasted, well, of rubber.

Service was pitiful. Staff were disorganised and ignored customers. The only competent member of staff, a man that I assume is the manager, was overwhelmed, doing his best to tidy up after his staff. Waiters routinely ignored pleas for service. There was the farcical situation of customers walking to the bar to chase drinks. After midnight, staff were too busy drinking champagne to care about hungry, irritated and dissatisfied customers, with one table waving their napkins in the air to attract attention, Michael Winner style.

Shanghai Blues - never again.
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David
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 1
Friday, January 18, 2008

We had dinner at Shangai Blues last night. We had booked a table at 7.30 but when we arrived, they had us down for 8.30 and insisted on it. After a while they found us a table (the restautant was only half full). Straight away you notice the trendy decor, the chilled out atmosphere, the low lights. It's a plesant setting.

There is a large choice of cocktails and even without alchol: we tried the Citrus one and it was delicious. The food menu is also very extensive, with choices of dim sum, poultry, beef, noodles etc. Unfortunately they have a dish which includes Shark's fin - sharks are an endangered species and to me, personally, it's unacceptable that in the 21st century London it could appear on a menu! I did ask the manager to consider removing it (giving him a leaflet) but who knows...

Back to the restaurant experience: we shared a basket of dim sum, which were fairly average and very westernised (besides, dim sum are a lunch dish not a dinner dish) The peppercorn & shangai herbs ribs were fantastic, well cooked and flavoursome. We had crispy duck as a main, and again it came in a large portion, and was very well cooked. We shared a dish of crispy seafood noodles which was fairly average, although loaded with seafood, while the beef fillet with BBQ soya sauce was incredibly good.

What was the worst thing about our evening was the service - extremely clumsy (they dropped food on the table while cleaning, and didnt remove it until we pointed out), very slow (my drink didnt arrive until well after the food got served), uncommunicative (they started cleaning our table before we had our mains!) and quite rude too (when we refused to pay the discretionary service charge!).

If they dont get their acts together (and for me, if they dont stop serving shark fin) I will not consider going back.
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Fried Egg Fred
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 6
Wednesday, November 28, 2007

I totally disagree with the last review. I went to Shanghai Blues, on a Saturday round 6pm. The decor is gorgeous, dimly lit romantic. The tables are spread out far enough so you don't hear other conversations, and the service was attentive - plates taken away when finished, but it wasn't intrusive, and they wiped your table constantly.

The food was lovely, I think they don't use MSG in their food, unlike every other restaurant in Chinatown. We ate duck and roast pork belly, both of which were delicious, delicately flavoured, the duck wasn't too fatty.

We paid just under £100 for 3 dim sum, 2 mains and a bottle of wine - all well worth it, I cannot fault this restaurant!
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foodfish
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Thursday, November 22, 2007