Shanghai Buffet

Was pretty impressed with the spread. Everything was good PLUS good sushi & a Blue Bunny Ice Cream dipping cabinet with six flavors. The food was fresh & there was a good variety.
The only drawback was they charge for soft drinks. This seems to be the ongoing Chinese Buffett trend these days. I’m not a fan of it at all– it’s a Buffett! The drinks should be built into the cost.

so sad that they are locked up tight with a notice on the door and thier phone is out of service. ‘guess they didn’t pay the bills.
i joked that i had $ 50 worth of appetizers plus bbq, etc., every visit and that i would probably put them out of business. hey guys, i didn’t mean it. and now i miss you.
on the way back, i stopped at the asian super buffet on bell rd. near 7^th st. ‘first time in years. they were as bad as ever.
i have tried some across the north valley from scottsdale to sun city. none have compared to shanghai buffet.
can anyone recommend a super buffet that is anywhere near as good as shanghai? without going to shanghai, that is. :)

First time here, the food was good. Second time here, it was okay. Now, not so much. Doesn’t seem fresh. Everything a bit flavorless.
Won’t be back.

I’ll never come here again. Ate lunch looking forward to sushi and it was horrible. After chewing on it for a long time I finally tried some orange chicken, grilled chicken and beef and brocoli. Well I got what I expected from a buffet. For dessert I tried watermelon which was probably the best thing about the whole place. Mixed that with grapes, strawberries and bananas topped off with strawberry juice which made the bananas really soggy.
For a buffet, I didn’t expect more or less. But the bill came to be $ 25 for 2 people. When I asked to get the bill separate it came to be $ 8 a person. Don’t know where the extra ~$ 10 came from…

Trust the one star reviews here — it’s bad. I don’t know the motivation of those leaving 4 or 5 stars but they couldn’t possibly have eaten here. Unfortunately for us we thought the average rating of 3 and a half or so was good enough considering we didn’t plan and were in a hurry to find something. Upon arrival you will be welcomed with a greasy filthy stinky entry door that’s never been cleaned. Let that be a warning. It’s not too late to turn around. I wish we had.

Sad, when a place I liked seems not to maintain standards. Lunch was sad.

I took my niece here on a Monday night, so it could have just been because it was so slow, but the food was mostly terrible. The Orange chicken was pretty good, honey chicken also acceptable, but all seafood options tasted horribly bad. Even the peel and eat shrimp (how do you mess that up??) Tasted like it had been thawed, refrozen and thawed again. Desserts were also bad, I was excited to see coconut macaroons, but they were soggy and bad. Only thing keeping this place from 1 star was the friendly service, and a handicap being a slow weeknight. Probably will not be back.

I will give three stars just on the fact that it’s right around the corner and I haven’t fallen ill, other than that I’ve had better in the way of Chinese buffets. It’s certainly not the worse, just take the food and the overall look, I’ve been to better…

I’ve been to several buffet places and this one it top of the list. Great selection, plays regular music, fresh sushi, crawfish, crab legs, oysters, and much much more.

There is very little redeeming about this place. The food is subpar and frankly just bad in most cases. I sampled 10 items and the only thing remotely good was the rice and frankly how could they F up rice? I literally will never come here again and in hoping and hoping I don’t end up sick before the end of the day.
Side note: It took 2 hours before I was sick. I should have known better.
The building is old and dirty. I don’t see their health dept rating but I doubt it has an A in it. Yuck. I think I need a shower now.

I’ve eaten here a few times now and the food has always been very good. For me it’s a 30 minute drive to get here, but it’s worth the trip to get to a good Buffet. I may not eat here often, but when I do, I know it’ll be worth it.

After I read the reviews about this Shanghai Buffet. I still want to give it a try. And this is the first time we go to this place. We will never go back. It just waste my money and time and everything else. None of the food taste good to me. No wonder why it was so empty when we first arrive there! Next time when you walk into an empty restaurant, you should know why. Don’t waste your money!

Based off of the recent reviews, I was looking forward to trying this place out. Walking into this place was a SHOCK.
Sticky tables with a visible layer of grime? CHECK
Months (years??) of dried on food flecks on the walls? CHECK
dirt & debris in every corner? check check CHECK
We were super hungry so we decided to just deal with the «ick» factor.
Although the cleanliness was pretty sketch, the food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. The sushi was pale in color which scared me a little. I was excited to see they had oysters but when I looked at them, it looked like someone had picked out the smallest and cheapest ones to serve. They mix in a ton of cabbage into their seaweed salad (an obvious attempt to stretch out their supply with a cheap add in). And fried foods as far as the eye could see-​if you don’t like fried foods, you would be hard pressed to find something to eat. The only item that was REALLY BAD was their baked salmon (it was AWFUL) which tasted like it had been on the line for DAYS. All their sauces tasted like a bunch of sugar had been dumped in them.
I will say, the toasted/​fried squid was amazing, almost made up for the whole outing… Almost.
Had a wee bit of difficulty getting our check because our server was busy watching the game on the tv… seriously, the guy was standing in the middle of the dining area just staring at the tv, really put me off.
Chance of us coming back here? How do I put it… Scientology would have a better chance of being recognized as the one true religion than us coming back to this place.

Some Unilocalers get on the «no chain restaurants» idealistic bandwagon, which is a worthy cause, if not taken to an extreme form of foodier-​than-​thou pretension. However, there seems to be a lack of acknowledgment that the lowly, oft-​forlorned, buffet and other Chinese restaurants are almost always independently, family-​owned and run, local businesses. Seeing the same employees everyday, obviously working 12+ hour shifts, sometimes with their children sitting in a booth doing school work, is the epitome of the local indie ideal. They are making a small profit margin, too (otherwise they might upgrade the interior amenities more often), so cut them some slack and if you know you don’t like a buffet format, then don’t go to one and give a bad review because a chef didn’t plop your steaming hot dish from his pan to your plate, or because someone brought their grubby children for a bargain priced night out.
Shanghai is still one of tastiest buffets in north phoenix. The food is very good, judging against other restaurants of it’s kind, of course, this is a qualified 5 stars. One cannot go in expecting fine dining atmosphere and expect to pay less than $ 10 for their meal if one is of sound mind. I’m not sure what some reviewers expect when they start their comments off with a phrase like «i dont even like buffets» and then proceed to rip a place apart because other people were touching the serving spoons! I wish I was an owner here. I’d make no effort to kiss the butt of the customers trying to walk all over me. (The staff is very friendly to regulars, as well as angelicaly patient with grumpy, demanding, difficult customers.) I’d tell them to take their pretentious, trying-​not-​to-​pay $ 80 butt and gtfo.
Criticisms of the place being old are warranted, and there is a lack of cold salad greens. The latter is made up for with some delicious veggie dishes of bok choy, green beans, broccoli, and/​or spinach hot dishes. There are slower days, and especially slower times of day when you may not see many customers and the food may replenish a little slower. When the Friday night or Saturday afternoon rush is on though, both the restaurant and crowd of customers seem to gell into a single well oiled machine.
PS There are almost always coupons available from Val pak, Clipper, etc.

Sorry, I’d have to give this place a 2-​stars. I’m not trying to bitch at this restaurant at all, although I really want to give it a 3-​stars but I just feel like it doesn’t deserve it, at least for now anyways… If we’re happened to be here again and if the quality exceeds my current rating, I’ll definitely be fair and write an updated version!
Our first time to this place was on a weekday and the food was not «eatable,» in my taste. The egg drop soup smelled like they have used a few rotten eggs to cook. I got a small bowl and hate wasting food although it’s a buffet. Unfortunately, after half of the spoonful I had to take a big gulp of water to wash down this horrible taste of rotten eggs. Never mind I thought, I’ll get a Miso soup to eat with Sushi instead! Omg, I felt like I had just swallow a huge chunk of salt from the Miso soup. What on Earth is this… Super-​super salty! It wasn’t like I scooped from the bottom of the soup when I got it (you know how it’s always more salty as you reach to the bottom of the soup.) In addition, the Sushi rice was sour and then too much cream cheese in the rolls, that makes the whole pieces just plain sour! Awesome, another huge gulps of water! We all know the rule of thumb for going to a buffet is don’t drink too much water, right?
It made me wonder if their chef even try to taste his/​her food after he/​she had made them. Because it got to the point that those dishes that I mentioned above were NOT eatable! Other dishes were OK… quite frankly, not good but eatable. As I was eating bits of other dishes, I noticed that one of the cooks brought out a pot of hot water and dumped the whole thing into the Miso soup. O. K… You might think that it’s normal to do that! I don’t think so, especially at a restaurant. It makes customers feel like they don’t care about their food. What I think they should have done is they should take the whole soup pot back and re-​cook on the stove with more water added, using the appropriate temperature. That way the tofu, seaweed and the broth can all be at the same temperature. Have you ever eaten a soup that the broth is hot but all other stuff in there is either warm or cool? Well, that’s how it’s gonna taste like when you use a quick fix method like that after the soup has been sitting out for at least 15 minutes.
I appreciate the fact that the manager tries to make the space around the food area clean by keeping an eye on the floor. But I wish that he would have been a little more thoughtful in considering the taste of the food as well, and perhaps hire someone that knows how to make sushi or sushi rice! Because the sushi rice honestly tasted like they have dumped a whole lot of vinegar in there. Maybe, it was an accident… Who knows! But I don’t appreciate their business mentality of making their food. If it needs to be fixed, then fix it properly, because people do pay to eat. It doesn’t matter what prices you charge, it can be cheap, expensive or average, but the QUALITY is what makes a business succeeed!

I’m not a fan of buffets but my husband and I happen to be in the area and figured we’d give it a try. The bucket of trash before we walked in the dirty door was a red flag, but we were already there and my husband was hungry and grumpy. I could only eat the soup and one piece of a chicken wing. I tried the egg roll. It tasted like styrofoam. The clientele was mostly families who let their kids touch every spoon on the buffet. Bottom line, this place was gross.

This place is hit or miss. Most things here feel like they’ve been sitting out here for awhile and get hard or stale but some things are still good.
Sadly the best place for Chinese food I’ve found in town.

I am not normally a fan of Chinese buffets, however, this one has been consistently wonderful each time! My husband and I have been there multiple times, and on each occasion there is warm, tasty food and a huge selection.
Location — The location itself is fairly clean and a decent size. The booths are large and comfortable. The tables with chairs look comfy, but I haven’t ever tried them. Oh and the bathrooms are VERY clean (I can only speak for the womens one!). which was a surprise in itself, considering so many businesses do not take care of their bathrooms for some reason.
Sushi — unlimited sushi is included in the cost of the buffet too! If they do not have something you like, but have the ingredients, they have custom made one for me every single time.
Staff — Super friendly and very attentive. Our glasses barely get to half full before someone is asking us for a refill. Our plates are cleaned up promptly as well.
Food selection — they have a large selection and everything I have tried has been good to excellent. Anything you would except at a Chinese buffet and then some other extra stuff. As mentioned, they do not really have a salad, but I don’t think most people who go to a Chinese buffet are there for the salad! The dessert section is decent, however most of it is bleh. But by the time you have the excellent tasting food, there is usually no room for dessert. They do however have self serve ice cream and that is usually always good! The crab rangoon is probably the best I have ever had here in Phx.
The price is excellent — for 2 people we can have dinner and drinks with tip for about 30 $. Since this includes sushi, it is a great deal. They do have crab legs at dinner, however, with crab, you kind of get what you pay for!
I believe the lunch buffet is like 20 $ for two people with drinks included.
So if you like Chinese food, give them a try, I am almost positive you will not be disappointed.

This is the best chinese buffet in North Phoenix.
Pros: They have a sushi chef. Try finding that anywhere. They have all the regular dishes you’d expect at a chinese buffet. Good quality and hot. Cheap.
Cons: Limited on the salads. Sometimes, something that looks like a salad or just plain lettuce. The front door hasn’t been cleaned since 1962. The men’s room urinal has had a black plastic bag on it since I’ve been going there for 3 months. (Come on, fix the damn thing). Both bathroom doors have not been cleaned since, well you get the idea.
Overall, I drive past a couple of other Chinese buffets to get here. It’s worth the trip.

If you like China buffets for lunch, this is your place. It was clean, there was a good selection of food including several tasty chicken dishes, they offered decent sushi (we all know it’s usually terrible at buffets!), and there were no foul odors when I walked in. Next time it’s a China buffet day, I will definitely go back to Shanghai Buffet.