Shanghai ‘Elan Restaurant

Just so-​so. Won’t be going back. I really wanted Chinese food and was glad to see that they were open in the late afternoon. My pot stickers were overcooked on one side & under cooked on the other. The green onion pancake were so oily I could not eat them. So sad, I really wanted to like them.

Very lovely décor and is attached to crystal mall. The menu is in English and Mandarin, don’t feel this is an Asian only place! My wife and myself were welcomed rather warmly and a wonderful lady whom was most likely the owner thanked us and packed away our food afterwards. The food itself was glorious, the Peking duck is the best I’ve ever had, and the sweet and sour chicken was executed flawlessly, from the crispy outside to the veggie and pineapple mix that was with it. The meal itself was highly recommended, but the server at the end thought we wouldn’t tip and rudely told us we couldn’t leave until we tip, before I could say anything she walked away. Pro tip: some people tip only cash so it all goes to the server and not the business, if you let me speak you would have noticed the $ 10 bill I had for the meal. Still left your tip there, didn’t want it to tarnish the night by being rude in return! Besides that minor issue, this is a very nice place with brilliant food. If that last lady hadn’t been so rude and abrupt without allowing me to speak before marching off, there would be 5 stars on my review rather than 4. If anything, my ranking of this place is really about 4.5

The best Shanghai cuisine in Burnaby. I have been going there every time I miss my home town taste and I am always happy with the dishes Shanghai Élan offers. Love 糟熘鱼片，鱼香肉丝，小笼包. Highly recommended to the people who want authentic Shanghai cuisine.

Came here for lunch and everything we ordered seemed up to par.
No real complaints.

Inconsistent is a word I can use to describe the place. On the pricey side relative to the portion size

The dishes and service have much improved since two years ago, now that they have more competition, i m looking forward to better.

I’d say 3.5÷5; Unilocal really needs to start providing 0.5 rating option.
I stumbled upon this place trying to pick a restaurant that I haven’t been for a family dinner gathering and I happen to LOVE Shanghainese food!
I was definitely having some concern after reading a few reviews here but decided HEY, it couldn’t be THAT bad. As it turns out — I’m right.
Firstly the ambiance — yah not that great. It’s just your average mid-​range priced Chinese restaurant. Secondly the service: IT WAS GREAT! Servers were very attentive and efficient in terms of every aspect; attitude was very friendly at the same time. (I saw a review where someone complained about having to get keys for the bathroom — I think this is because the bathrooms are situated so closed to their mall entrance that they might be concerned about non-​paying customers using it all the time.)
Finally the food — I order a set dinner for 6:
Appetizers (egg yolk wrapped with duck meat, wild veggie with diced dried bean curd, and roasted wheat gluten)
Chopped scallop pumpkin soup
Sweet and rock cod
Dongpo pork
Peking duck (2 courses)
Xiao Long Bao
Pan-​fried cabbage with bamboo fungi and tofu skin
Stir fried shrimp
Dessert (pan fried red-​bean pancake)
plus Shanghainese pan fried rice cake.
My favourites were the appetizers and stir fried shrimp. When the appetizers came on, I had the urge to cancel the rest of my order because I could eat 2 bowls of rice just with the veggie w/​bean curd dish alone. The egg yolk duck was interesting too; I really like all of the appetizers. The shrimp has to be my favourite entrée-​wise; the texture was really crisp and not that greasy. It’s an extremely simple dish with no fancy flavours yet so well executed.
The Xiao Long Bao was within standard but I’ve had better. The Dongpo pork has a lot of flavour but not too salty — I don’t even eat fatty pork but I couldn’t resist.
My least favourites have to be the Pan-​fried cabbage with bamboo fungi and tofu skin and the 2^nd course of the Peking duck (the duck meat with stir fried with Chinese celery); taste-​wise they were both simply too average… something almost every Chinese mom can create without spending too much effort.
I do like the rice cake too — so happy that they were not lumpy, like they’ve been in the wok for too long which is very much of a common problem in a number of Shanghai restaurants I’ve been to. The dessert was a-​ok but I like it because it wasn’t too sweet.
I’d like to come back to try their noodle soup and other dumplings but I will conclude my review with the fact that their dinner is slightly too pricy for the taste of food.

I don’t understand how Shanghai Élan can have such low ratings. I have been coming here regularly since 2013, and while some days are better than others, I would never rate Shanghai Élan below a 3.5.
My top Shanghai Élan Dishes:
XLB
Pan Fried Pork Buns
Pork Chop Noodle Soup
Pork Crêpe Wrap

My friends and I ordered xiao long bao (little basket steamed pork buns), duck eggs wrapped by duck meat, and a couple dishes of vegetables and a pot of hot and sour soup.
All the dishes were not very good. Everything could have an improvement or they could have cooked better. For instance, every single dumpling skin of the xiao long bao was broken and the sauce/​soup inside came out. The duck eggs were not fresh and the dish was not attractive or tasted well.
If I have an option to eat Shanghainese food, I would have gone to better Shanghainese restaurants in Richmond like Shanghai River and a couple other ones.

We were staying at the Hilton at Metrotown when we needed a late night dinner. All the places under the hotel had closed but we found Shanghai ‘Élan open. Took a chance and were pleasantly surprised. Everything we ordered were well made and tasty. The XLB were fresh and juicy. My homestyle tofu was very well prepared with freshly fried tofu. Lastly, the deep fried dungeoness crab with duck egg yolk was excellent (my wife told me so, since I’m allergic). Our server was very pleasant and didn’t rush us even though it was closing time.

Changed chef. I’d say don’t bother as food is now barely decent on last visit.

After circling around Crystal Mall in Burnaby several times looking for a place to eat, my family and I stumbled across Shanghai Élan Restaurant. To start off our meal, we had Cold Cuts & Egg Yolk Wrapped with Duck Meat. The cold cuts were refreshing — it had some mushrooms and slices of meat. However, I didn’t like the egg yolk at all. I thought it was strange and I didn’t like the texture of it. The Xiao Long Bao was just so-​so for me. The filling was tasty but the wrapper was soggy and didn’t have a great texture.

The good chef definitely left. Huge drop in quality. Can’t say I’d come back. No Shanghai love.

Return customer. Always accommodates our big family with advanced reservations. Food is good and price is decent. jACE approved.

A year ago, I would have rated Shanghai Élan 4 stars. Today, I’d have to offer 2 or 2.5 stars.
I’ve been a customer since the early days in 2012. Back then, they offered me a VIP card which offers a perpetual 12% off. But even with the discount, I’ve noticed the quality of food has gone steadily downhill in the past six months.
During my last visit to Shanghai Élan, we ordered xiaolongbao, stir fried nian gao, pan fried crispy pork soup bun, noodles, and a couple of other sides. These dishes are standard fare at a Shanghai restaurant, comparable to fettuccine with marinara at an Italian place or chicken fried steak in Houston. Unfortunately, each one these Shanghainese dishes came out either barely warm, too salty, or not flavorful enough. This was the second time I had encountered such average quality food from Élan. I asked the floor manager what had happened and she confirmed what I had suspected… one of the head chefs had left and the sous chef was now in charge. She offered us pan fried red bean cake for dessert, but the damage was done.
Overall, the restaurant is decent if you haven’t tasted better and are not too picky about authentic Shanghainese food. The plating is good. Service is relatively attentive for a Chinese restaurant. They accept credit cards. Parking is so-​so in Crystal Mall (I would gladly pay for street parking in front if you find a spot.)

I usually come to this restaurant because I live close by and this this restaurant is pretty clean which is important to me. A clean restaurant makes your dining experience more comfortable.
We ordered:
— Xiao long bao — The pork dumplings were plump and juicy with soup inside :)
— Beef noodle soup (spicy) — We still found this noodle soup a bit too spicy even though we asked for medium spice.
— Stir fry rice cakes — The rice cakes were chewy (in a good way) and were made just right. I liked how they added more veggies than I expected in this dish.
We also wanted to try their beef roll but since my boyfriend has a peanut allergy, they told us that they use the same oil for the peanuts to fry the onion pancake. I was a bit disappointed that they also ran out of the deep fried pork buns that night.
Overall the food was in a generous portion. The three dishes did fill us up and we ended up packing the food home.
They accept cards!
Downside: Crystal Mall parking is terrible and the service is alright. They always tend to run out of popular items later on in the evening. :(

I have been looking forward to this place for awhile, and now after two times coming here, I really don’t know where the good marks come from, has anyone eaten Shanghainese food anywhere else before coming here? I keep reading the praise given to this restaurant on the reviews given and I just shake my head and think (and know) that I could get way better Shanghainese food upstairs in the food court. This restaurant has been in this place for awhile, taking over from the old ‘Pittsburgh’ HK café spot, and popped up during the boom of Shanghainese restaurants opening left and right in the Lower Mainland and you would think by this time they would have figured it out and excelled at their craft, well think again.
I have had both dinner, and now lunch at this place, and I can say that dinner was a tad better than the lunch was just had. Coming here in the morning, I was expecting what I consider ‘comfort food’ in my vocabulary, which would be this type of food. You may enjoy your pancakes and sausage links, or even dim sum, for me… Shanghainese morning food is the ultimate in terms of starting off a lazy day. Here’s where the disappointment begins… looking through the pretty pictured menu, I really had no real clue what to order on this day, and some things popped out… deep fried glutinuous rice cake (粢饭糕), sticky rice roll (粢饭) and Shanghainese sticky rice wrap. All were glorious shown in the menu with colorful pictures of these three choices I picked, and when ordering each, having none was a shock. so why put these things in big pictures in your big menu when I can’t even order them, being shot down like that right in the morning. first sitting, how do you run out of sticky rice, are you opening up a business, I can understand not having the deep fried glutinous rice cake and the Shanghainese sticky rice wrap, but not the sticky rice roll — this item is a staple of Shanghainese breakfast, practically like not having pancakes offered at a regular brunch/​breakfast joint…
Being already disappointed I continued to order for the family, hot sweet soy milk, and savoury soy milk, two orders of Chinese donut, pan fried rice cake, Shanghai wonton, XLB, Shanghai pan fried buns, and a mixed fried noodle dish. I can’t say any were done quite well, the Chinese donut’s were too doughy, the wontons were a little too big, the mixed noodles, and the pan fried rice cake were average (nothing special) and the savoury soy milk. poor execution, throw in some cut up Chinese donuts, some dried little shrimp and that’s about it… I don’t get how hard this thing is to make, where’s the chili oil, where’s the pickled veggies, where’s the one drop of vinegar to change this dish up? What a piss poor try to make a dish so easy, oh… that’s right, chili oil, when I asked for this, they did not have any??? How are you even a Chinese restaurant, no matter what type of Chinese cuisine you are… no chili oil, holy wow. The XLB, a good size, but not much in terms of the hot soup (go upstairs. really. even though the owners have changed, it is still better than here), and the pan fried Shanghainese buns. this wasn’t bad. probably the best thing on the table.
This place is also weird on another aspect, the washrooms located in this place need a key? The washrooms are in your own area, why the hell do you need a key to go in? If you are wondering on my critical remarks, one side of my family is Shanghainese, and I have eaten this food for most of my life… below average, be warned, enjoy, have fun, and just know that the food court upstairs (two stalls) do better in this food than this restaurant!

I really enjoyed my meal here. My dad and I came for lunch around 1245 on Friday and it was packed! We were very lucky and got a table almost immediately (a lineup soon formed after we were seated)
I was in the mood for dim sum so we ordered the steamed vegetable buns which had green veggies, tofu and mushroom on the inside. They were very flavorful and delicious!
We also ordered the three tofu dish (16.50) cooked in oyster sauce I think. This was also really good layered on bok choy. My dad ordered the hot soy with Chinese donuts (you tiao in Chinese). These were huge portions so definitely share with someone since both these items don’t taste as good the next day.
We also ordered this flat «su bing» that’s basically a pastry with sugar on the inside. I think this actually tasted better the next day cold, but when it’s hot the liquid sugar oozes out. It’s a really delicious dessert that I actually haven’t seen anywhere else.
One complaint though was that even though everything else came out pretty quickly the soy milk took forever to come out. It basically didn’t get serves until we were almost finished. If you’re Chinese you know you can’t eat Chinese donuts without it!
Definitely recommend this place! Good portions, reasonable prices and fairly good service.

As far as Shanghainese restuarants go, Shanghai Élan is only average. Shanghai Élan serves up decent Shanghai food at middle of the road prices. That being said, I still prefer Shanghai River or Dinesty for Shanghainese cuisine.
Service was alright. None of the dishes come with rice, so you have to order it separately. They don’t have white rice, they only have purple rice. The rice took a really long time to come and when we asked the waitress she said she had forgotten about our order.
The only standout dishes were the sweet and sour rock cod and the beef rolls. The other dishes we tried were all fairly standard and better executed elsewhere. The XLBs weren’t that great, the skin was fairly doughy and thick.
If you’re craving Shanghainese near Crystal Mall, Shanghai Élan will suffice, however I don’t think I would go out of my way to come back here.

It wasn’t the worst experience I’ve had, but it definitely wasn’t good.
The service, unfortunately made it dip to 2 stars. Now, I know not to expect good service from an Asian restaurant so I kept that in mind too. The staff were especially grumpy and when one dish was an hour late coming to the table, we asked to cancel it.
«It’s already made!»
Uh, are you psychic? You just pulled that out of the air and didn’t even ask the kitchen. We had to get another server and she checked with the kitchen. They didn’t get the order so we were able to cancel it.
The food here was not bad, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth coming here especially with the terrible service and the horrendous parking lot.