Johns Shanghai

I was first impressed by the cleanliness of the restaurant, and how friendly the staff is. The woman greeted us with an authentic smile, the kind that truly appreciates you as a guest. Their service reflected the same. I felt welcome. I appreciated the silver chop sticks, and the upscale atmosphere. If you are looking for an excellent dining experience, this is the place! I ordered Sesame Chicken (which does have a bit of a rubbery texture like another reviewer had mentioned), but the flavor was amazing. I chalk it up to being unique. They use a different cooking method than others. I like unique! Leftovers tasted even better the next day. My husband ordered General Tso's chicken. Said it was the very best he's ever had. He had just returned from 6 days in AZ on a food conference experimenting different foods for his job, but said this was probably the best food he had tried all week! The dinner specials are $8.99 ( includes, soup, main entree, side of rice, and caraffe of Jasmine hot tea). Our new favorite restaurant♡

What beats their poor food quality is their abysmal management and ambience. What really killed the experience for me was the rudeness and indifference of the manager/server. I haven't met a person as rude as him in the U.S. let alone in the hospitality industry. This person has a unique skill of being hurtful. I wouldn't recommend this place at all. There are many much better options (e.g., Big Bowl).

Take out only during C-19 pandemic. I ordered pickup thru GrubHub 3 hours early and the food wasn't ready when I got there. The dumplings are good. I ordered a bunch of different ones. All of them were good, especially the crab & pork soup dumplings. Everything else? Not so much. Skip the roast duck. I paid $13 for mostly skin, gristle and bone with very little meat. I specified no egg in the fried rice, and they still put egg in it. My husband can't eat egg. I spent 20 mins picking out the egg because I wasn't driving 25 minutes back to State College to make them fix it when everyone else was eating their lunch. Like I said, good dumplings. Skip everything else.

I have eaten in once and gotten delivery once and was very impressed both times. The atmosphere in the restaurant is very lovely and I especially liked the metal chopsticks. The fried rice was delicious, as was the chicken I got. A lot of Chinese food in State College is pretty bland, but John’s Shanghai has so much rich, delicious flavor. My new go-to for Chinese in town - I’ve been recommending it to everyone!