Does Anyone Remeber the Shanghai Cafe on 126th & Broadway?

Question

Does anyone remember the Shanghai Cafe on Broadway just north of 125th street? It closed in the early 80's more or less. Family legend has it that it is the first restaurant I ever ate at while in a stroller.
 
I have been on a semi-perpetual quest for their hot and sour soup. 
 
Not just nostalgia, the food there was some of the best Chinese I ever ate. From the beef with black bean sauce to the shrimp with lobster sauce, it really defined excellent old school NY Chinese.
 
No wonder they closed; most of the waiters were in their 60's or older at that point.
 
I don't think I ever ate a bad morsel there. What I would give for one more meal there, or at least some of their Hot and Sour...

Answer

I ate there many times. Here is their business card enlarged to 8 x 10. I would love to get my hands on a menu, even just a take out menu. There has to be one around somewhere. Enjoy.

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My wife and I used to eat there in the late sixties. I seem to recall a whole deep fried fish and fried dumplings were favorites. At the time eating uptown seemed somewhat exotic. The food was good and unusual compared to Chinatown and Upper east side Chinese.

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I don't usually read the Manhattan board, but I've been in NYC a lot lately and caught this ancient thread posted by Striper, familiar Boston poster, that revived many fond memories.
Ate frequently at Shanghai Cafe back in early '70s as a Manhattan School of Music student and Claremont Ave. resident (a neighborhood called "White Harlem," by George Carlin, who grew up there). Chowed down a lot at Moon Palace, too, as well as the Cuban/Chinese place on Broadway under the El. There was a good Indian place on 125th Street, too, near Amsterdam.
But my go-to was Tom's Diner, immortalized by Suzanne Vega and Seinfeld. Wish I could remember the name of the aging waitress who always treated us royally while we scarfed down the cheeseburger special or the patitisio, best I ever had -- though that's probably nostalgia talking, same as Striper's memory of his hot and sour soup. Thomas Wolfe had it right, at least in the case of food memories: you can't go home again.

Answer

My parents used to take me there in the 1950s. My father spoke some Shanghai dialect Chinese and found out that he and the owner had some common acquaintances from Shinaghai in the early 1940s. If I remember correctly, the owner said he could not make it downtown because no one understood Shanghai cuisine and he figured that he would have at least some chance of success uptown where the Columbia Univ. people might appreciate his food. I went back in the late 1970s and he remembered me. The food was great back in the 1950s and it was great when I went back in the late 1970s. You're probably right that it closed sometime in the early 1980s because I tried to go back in the late 1980s and it was gone. Thanks for bringing back some great memories.

Answer

I would go there in the 1950's when I was at City College. I would often rendezvous with friends who were at Columbia.

I pointed an old friend to this thread and he remenisced:

"They used to take reservations only for groups of 6 or more.
Once 6 of us were planning to go, and Leon made
a reservation. But 2 people cancelled, so there were only 4
of us. We got on line, as of course we had to It was a big
line, and we began to feel guilty at the sight of an empty table 
laid for 6. So Leon went to the phone booth near the front
door, phoned the Shanghai Cafe, and cancelled. We saw
the manager take the call but didn't hear what he said. When
Leon came back, we asked him. "He said," said Leon, "Never 
come again!"

Answer

My recollection is that in the early 1960s it had the first hot & sour soup in NYC, popular though it later became.

Its proprietor, named Misha for sure, Foo perhaps, had come here from Moscow's Chinatown, which evaporated with the Revolution, and so could speak Russian with my father, who would sometimes claim he learned Chinese during WWII.

Didn't the physicists develop the theory of the nonconservation of parity there?

Answer

I remember the place well from the 1950's and 60's. First one should clarify that is was on Broadway between 125th and 129th streets. 125th street bends north and by the time it reaches Broadway 129th street is the next street north. The place was largely setup with long shared tables. The sweet and sour pork was totally perfect, I can't recall any better since then. Originally on the south side of 125th street near broadway was the competing Tien Tsien. That establishment later moved to more upscale quarters on the north side of 125th street. Back in those days parking was never an issue and it was no big deal to drive up to Harlem for some great chinese food.

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I'm so glad someone added to this thread after all these years. I went to the Shanghai Cafe in the mid-fifties with my father who knew it from his journalist colleagues. We loved it then and I lived in Morningside Gardens when it was first built. My mother bought a two bedroom apartment there for $6000 in 1957. We also went to the Great Shanghai on 103rd & Broadway. Also, some time in the late sixties or early 70s we went to what I think was the first Szechuan restaurant in NY on Broadway around 95th, I think. It may not have been the first one but I know that I had never had spicy Chinese food before. My brother had been traveling all over the middle east and south Asia and liked all exotic fare. We ordered a whole carp and my brother may have been the only one to eat it and the head as well. We were all shocked by it, at the time.

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Ate there in 59 and 60. I do have a menu but I can't scan it in just yet

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Funny, ate there when I was still in high school, probably around 1965 with a friend and her City College brother and friends. Don't remember the food because I was so busy trying to eat with chopsticks like they were. Next time I went out for Chinese food with my mom I practiced the entire meal...Haven't looked back.

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Funny, ate there when I was still in high school, probably around 1965 with a friend and her City College brother and friends. Don't remember the food because I was so busy trying to eat with chopsticks like they were. Next time I went out for Chinese food with my mom I practiced the entire meal...Haven't looked back..

Answer

A taxi driver friend took me there around 1963 from my home in Flatbush. Yes, it was my first time I tasted Hot and Sour Soup, Dumplings, and Clams in brown sauce. I also remember the waiters thinking it was very funny to tell me [a gal] that the bathroom was not available.

Answer

Ah, what memories! From the time I was about 5 in the late 50s till the early 70s it was absolutely my favorite eating place in the world. If I could go back in time for a meal that is the place I would choose. The fried dumplings were to die for, and since my dad did not let us bet money, all family bets were in the form of an order of dumplings. The Mongolian Firepot, only served in the winter, was a wonderful way to warm up. All year round the "10 Different Ingredients" soup provided us with a family game - who found all ten first (and of course the winner got the order of dumplings). And we all loved the shining noodle dishes. My dad, who when it came to food always insisted that things be done authentically, insisted we learn from early childhood to eat with chopsticks, and I remember the waiters (especially an older one who I think was named Jimmy Lee) being especially taken with my little sister being totally adept with them at age two. The place was just a hole in the wall (my dad always found the best hole in the wall places wherever we went), and with the elevated subway station right above it, the plates would rattle when a train went by like the Woody Allen childhood Coney Island scene in Annie Hall. The last time I went there was when I moved to the city for grad school at Columbia in the late 70s, but it was just a shadow of its former self by that time.

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My friends and I used to go uptown to the Shanghai Cafe every Friday night for years, when I lived in NY. We were lucky enough to be invited to Sandy Fu's special New Year's celebration twice, and the memory of those wonderful dishes lives long in our hearts. My husband and I, having moved away from NY, once made a pilgrimage to the restaurant, only to find that it had closed, which made us very sad. We've just been talking about the memories, and wishing there was someone left in Mr. Fu's family who might still possess some of the recipes for those amazing Sweet and Sour Shrimp balls, or Roast pork with asparagus, and Roast pork with chestnuts, just to name a few. And the eggrolls!!! We love living in LA, but as far as we've discovered, the cuisine represented at the Shanghai Cafe has passed into history. There are a couple of places that say they have a "New York" eggroll, but trust me - not. They pale by comparison. If the recipes still exist, and are owned by someone in the family, they could make a fortune coming out with a memoir and cookbook. Every NY expat in LA would buy one, for sure! Just sayin'.

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OMG -- I grew up on 69th Street and we happen to have had a car. In the 1960's and throughout the 1970's...every single week -- usually a Saturday -- and sometimes twice a week, we would drive up there for dinner. We knew Mr. Wong, Sandy and the rest. Every birthday would be there and then Palisades Amusement Park across the river. I loved their wonton soup -- the closest I ever had to it was in Brooklyn but that place is gone now, too. I went there for the last time with some friends about 1980 before they closed and it had gone downhill. It was excellent...

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I was looking for a menu for this family favorite restaurant
and found this article. I enjoyed seeing all the stories in this thread!

I wonder if someone can find their menu from the early days?

We went often back in the 1960s when I was 5-10 year old, and my it was my father's favorite restaurant when he lived nearby in the 1950s.

In addition to a Chinese American menu, they featured many dishes that one would not
often find back then... Notable were the Szechuan Pork, which was fatty sliced pork and cabbage stir fried with lots of chili peppers, lobster or crab soong, which featured a nest of deep fried rice noodles with seafood and white sauce over lettuce. Whole fish was also favorite. Loved to eat rice with the sauces and lots of black tea with sugar. For dessert, dry lychees or mixed fruits and ginger ( which I later found in Chinatown grocery stores called "chow chow").

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My family and I ate so many meals at the Shanghai Cafe (50+ years ago). We would drive in from Leonia NJ across the GW Bridge. My favorite dish was a deep fried whole fish that was served sweet and sour style. So delicious! I don't think I've had a better Chinese dish since. I live in the Bay Area now and although I have a plethora of Chinese and Asian restaurants, the Shanghai Cafe has a special place in my heart.

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Does Anyone Remeber the Shanghai Cafe on 126th & Broadway?