Jinnaigor - Lisboa

Fresh fresh fresh. Great service and friendly. No hard sell like the other restaurants nearby. No need to- the food is that good. Dont be surprised when they pull your meal from a tank in the window.

Unlike most of the adapted Chinese restaurants outside of China, the food in Shanghai Family is very authentic and really brings the taste of home. As a Chinese living abroad, this restaurant is the place to go whenever i am homesick. The staff are extremely friendly (if you speak Chinese , the food is made of fresh materials and is cooked on spot. Take the Spring Roll for example, most of the restaurants would pre-made the rolls and freeze them. Whenever there is an order, they take it out of the fridge, put it in the microwave and deep fry them. In Shanghai family, you can taste the difference. The veges inside the roll is cooked at the moment. Roll it and fry on spot. The Hotpot is another must try in this restaurant, which it a rare find in other adapted Chinese restaurants. It is similar to a fondue (with a much bigger pot , which you put the meet vege into a hot boiling soup. Everythig is cooked on spot. They will also serve you dip with peanut butter base, which you can adjust according to your own preference by adding soy sauce, piripiri etc All in all, this restaurant is where you will have a very authentic Chinese food experience. And if you happen to have a Chinese friend, bring him/her because you will also get dozes of free taste from the chef :

This hasn't happened in a VERY long time but when we sat down and looked at the menu we could not find ONE thing that looked or sounded appetising. We were sat down. We looked at the whole menu TWICE! 15mins later we still hadn't had a drink order taken. Looking around the room was depressing. We got out of there. I honestly don't think they would have noticed until an hour later.

Despite the somewhat unwelcoming interior (too brightly lit, uncomfortable chairs, a TV blasting in the background – not that great for a romantic evening out… , we were happily surprised by the quality of the food. It felt authentic, was fresh and pretty sophisticated. The waitress was also very friendly and helpful in guiding us through the vegetarian options in the menu.

This was so disappointing. Should have walked out after we saw the greasy prawn crackers but alas we stayed and hoped things might get better, which they sadly didn't. Spare ribs were more like chopped up bone with fat on them. Mixed veg was just fried greasy bean sprouts with a l. of slithers of veg with no sauce at all. To make matters worse there was about 30 minute wait from first dish arriving to the last which should have arrived together. We paid or bill and left the food. I hate to leave a bad review but I wouldn't want anyone else to waste their money or evening here. It certainly spoiled ours.