New Shanghai – Charlestown

So I've been to a quite a few chinese restaurants in my time and this place does my head in. Food: Great! While not the best I've had, it is good (as long as you dont know what real Shanghai food is). Service: SHOCKING! I have been to the Ashfield and Eastwood restaurants, and it has always taken ages to get served, and then there is such an unnecessary delay for the food. I guess what keeps me going back and putting up with it is that the dumplings are good. Until I went to their CHARLESTOWN (Newcastle) restaurant. This place looked promising, surrounded by other restaurants in a nice piazza style area of Charlestown Square. There's a couple of ladies making dumplings in the window. So this time I thought I would get a takeaway. Called up and went down to pick up. Got to there and was asked to pay for it. Sat down, played with my phone..... After about 45 mins i observed a few tables complaining about delays with their food. one table after waiting 40mins had to take it away, and there were definitely several unhappy patrons. I thought id give them the benefit of the doubt and waited...... still nothing. After 1hr 15mins I took it upon myself to look in the takeaway bag that was sitting on the counter since I got there... Surprise surprise it was half of my order! As you can guess I was well over it, so I asked for a refund..... After a lengthy and heated discussion, the manager's resolution was: - wait a little longer or take the food that had been sitting there for over 45mins and get a refund for the other half of the food that had not been made!!!! 28/11/2011

Food service isn’t great. We ordered five main dishes-the first three was fine, they came out in a timely manner. But after that we had to wait 40 minutes before the next dish came out and another half an hour for the final dish to come out. I understand Saturday is a busy night but this service is unacceptable because I can see that the reason for the long wait was because the kitchen was stacking up all the orders as the tables around us that came half to an hour later after we did got the same dish at the same time even though they ordered it much later. We lost our appetite after waiting too long for the final dish to come so we just got it as takeaway. 11/08/2011

With so many Asian restaurants in the Hunter it is easy to find a good feed, but when you take into account the quality and value-for-money, the New Shanghai at Charlestown is way beyond expectations. With the dumplings and other little delicacies being made in a window at the entrance, you are immediately hit with "fresh". When you taste the food, you are immediately hit with "fresh". When you get the bill, you're immediately hit with "surprise". An inexpensive surprise, at that. The New Shanghai is a fresh surprise. Get along, but book early. It's a busy little place, full of surprises that many people are only just experiencing. 13/07/2011