Rainbow Arch 鹊桥居 Shanghai Restaurant

As a chinese, I really think they do a good job. If you wanna try real local chinese food, you must need to come here. BTW, I like spicy food here sooooo much!

Service is good and the waiters are nice, but the cuisine is really horrible. I had Wonton soup and it wasn't good at all, I didn't even finish the soup as it tasted like liquid soap and the dumplings were really bad, and the sticky rice and chicken was really disappointing. I won't be back there that's for sure.

I liked the food. But the toilets are a nightmare.

I'm a Chinese from the north of the country and I've been living in Edinburgh for over 10 years. Shang Hai / Rainbow Arch is one of the very few Chinese restaurants that I go to in Edinburgh. Most of the Chinese restaurants here I think are over priced and pretty rubbish.
Basically, the golden rule to identify whether or not your local Chinese restaurant serves authentic Chinese good is to follow the Chinese. If there are many Chinese dinners inside, the restaurant can't be too bad. Of course, never expect too much of customer service. That's not often their strong point.

Not sure why this restaurant received poor reviews. I think it's really a bit unjustified .

If I could give this no stars I would. We went there for a quick lunch, only one other couple in there, we should have known at that point it wasn't going to be any good as this area is very busy with office workers.

The menu is pretty standard for a dim sum establishment, I was pleased to see Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings) We ordered a dim sum platter which should have consisted of Har Gau, Shui Mai, Char Sui buns, custard buns, a plate of vegetarian Singapore noodles to share and a pot of Chinese tea. They were out of Char Sui buns so I asked if they could replace with Xiao long bao which they agreed to (result!). The pot of tea they served contained one solitary flavourless tea bag, first time I have ever seen Chinese tea served like this in a restaurant it was weak and flavourless. The dim sum and noodles arrived at the same time which was fine as it took , 10-15 mins to steam the dumplings and it was our lunch break.

Let's start with the noodles, they were quite frankly disgusting. Wet, sloppy and flavourless, the only identifiable vegetables being celery, onion and scant pieces of egg, I couldn't eat anymore than a couple of mouthfuls. I turned optimistically to the very smart looking dim sum steamers, however the top layer consisting of insipid looking Shu Mai, standard pre made Har Gau and the custard buns did not fill me with hope. I bit into the Shu Mai and had to spit it out, greasy, flavourless and cheap tasting grisly filling yuk! I reckon it was the cheapest available in the freezer compartment of the local Chinese supermarket. Har Gau was ok, edible at least. We left the custard buns to last and raised the lid on the 2nd layer to reveal the Xiao Long Bao The pastry was grey, every one was split so all that was left was the same cheap, grisly cheap meat filling that was in the Shu Mai and no rice vinegar for dipping, bloody awful. The custard buns were the only tasty thing we sampled out of the whole lunch. I was thoroughly p'd off by this point, to serve food that was of such poor quality and think I would accept this without comment is really arrogant and disrespectful.

We asked for the bill and I told him the meal was inedible, providing the feedback I have outlined here. He really couldn't have cared less, no apology, only stating he would tell the chef and actually told me that there was not meant to be any soup in the Xiao Long Bao as this was a different kind.... really please please don't insult my intelligence. Whilst we could have argued the paying of the bill we didn't but I made it very clear we would never never go back and I would make it clear via social media channels that you should walk on by and give your money to Wagamama for consistently decent gyoza noodle dishes!

Shame on you Rainbow Arch!

The food is the worst I've tried. Seems they put 5 times of salt than normal.
Extra service charge is added in the bill, makes the price higher.

June '15: The business lunch (served on plastic plates) is truly appalling and must rank one of the worst in Edinburgh as regards food quality. Toilets look filthy with no towels or working hand dryer.

Went there on Dec. 31. The prices are told to be risen up by 50%. The manager is in bad mood and the meat is not well condition!

good shanghai dishes~these dishes are close to traditional shanghai dishes~