The Shang Hai Restaurant in Milford is a friendly place

It seemed like a foggy Saturday night in Chinatown as we ventured up Route 30 to Milford. 2024 is to be the Year of the Dragon, according to the American version of the Chinese zodiac, so it seemed a fitting time to introduce my readers to an attractive sit-down (or takeout) Chinese restaurant that serves very good fare for reasonable prices. I wanted a red-and-black lacquer dining room with some cherry blossoms somewhere in it!

We have been looking for just such a restaurant for some time. There is, of course, the China Wok in the Food Lion Shopping Center in Milton. It has many cousins in the area and is good for a quick fix, but we wanted to sit down and peruse a menu in a nice dining room.

My classmate, Kay Hitchens Jennings, came to the rescue. She mentioned the Shang Hai Restaurant in Milford, saying that she and her husband shared the shrimp with lobster sauce, and the staff always remember your name and what you like. I remembered a Chinese restaurant there from long ago in the early 1970s when I had first returned to Delaware from New Mexico. Back then, we (my mother and stepfather Howard Carey) had dined next door at Milford Diner, which was built using an authentic railway car, as some readers may remember. In front of its windows was the back of a red and green Chinese restaurant. But I had never dined there.

Kay said this Shang Hai now has a different owner and is very good, and she knows food, being an excellent cook herself. The Shang Hai has been here for awhile, since the 1980s, and has many loyal customers. A couple dining across from us on this foggy Saturday night said they have been coming there since her childhood, for 30 years. We have been here several times since following Kay's advice.

Most noticeable is the camaraderie of the place. Everyone, staff and customers alike, seems to get along. Talking warmly between tables, and from the bar to table, the staff is welcoming and gregarious. All different kinds of people engage in light banter freely. I myself, a 75-year-old woman, have had drinks bought for me by gentlemen at the bar who seem to love good bourbon whiskey. I did not turn down their offers.

You will most likely be greeted by Ming, one of the three Tran brothers who came here from Vietnam, first to Michigan for a year, and then on to Delaware. Ming will take your order, followed by an offering of crispy noodles with hot mustard and sweet duck sauce. You will surely find something to like on the menu. The $19 per person option is an excellent choice; it includes soup, an egg roll or spring roll, and an entree with white or fried rice.

There's almost a communal table in the center of the dining area. An exotic gentleman who seems to know his way around the menu sometimes is there. Bruce is a warm, friendly regular patron and sits at the bar, and the extroverted brother Hoy Tran tours the room conversing with the patrons, who all seem charmed by him. Han Tran, who seems to me to be the head chef, comes out and asks how everyone’s dinner was. It's informal friendliness, and we call it a club of sorts.

I cannot help but contrast this to a restaurant in the Cape Region which I will not name, but I'm sure many of you will recognize it. It is almost full on any given Friday or Saturday night. Maybe because it too has very good food for a reasonable price, but the atmosphere is quite the opposite from the Shang Hai.

The owner's countenance is like that of the character in the infamous Seinfeld episode featuring a temperamental "soup chef." The customers who are so desirous of his soup approach warily, shuffling along in a line, willing to risk his wrath and almost anticipating it. "Will I get the soup? Will he like me enough to be nice to me?" Once they have passed the test, they scurry away. The soup being not so much the prize as much as the gaining of his approval enough to get it! It's almost a psychological game.

We have dined in this place a few times with a couple who are on his good list and who are quite proud of that fact. Once we took Jeff's sister there, a notably picky eater. She requested the carbonated Italian water, Pellegrino, with ice. The owner/waiter said, "You don't need ice; it's cold enough!" One doesn't ask for olive oil instead of butter, or for extra parmesan cheese. And there is only one salad dressing, so don't ask for other than the house dressing!

One hot night we ordered beer instead of the preferred red wine. "Germans!" he muttered loud enough for us to hear him, and walked away shaking his head disapprovingly. He brought us a Lite beer, which we did not order, as a punishment. You feel like you're on the set of the movie, "The Menu," a tale of a domineering chef at a gourmet restaurant who has mesmerized his staff.

The diners of this restaurant sit quietly for the most part, obedient and hoping to curry his favor for some strange reason that's more than the prices and the food. On the "Sunday Morning" TV show I saw recently, an eatery in Japan known as the Insult Restaurant was featured. Patrons pack in from all over Japan to be insulted by the wait staff and owner. Japan, ironically, has a reputation for being extremely mannerly and polite. It's theater of a kind, I suppose.

But let me end with recommending Shang Hai in Milford for a warm experience, and the pleasant theater of friendly people!