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May-May's Diary
Entry for August 28, 1998
Hi, boys and girls, it's ME!!!! I don't like to talk about this kind of thing too much, but I have recently been confirmed in my position as the Queen of Shanghai Nightlife, and therefore feel particularly qualified to write about this week's topic: In search of Shanghai's Lan Kwai Fong!!
For those of you who haven't been to Hong Kong, you need to know that Lan Kwai Fong is the name of a small street which has become the absolute center of nightlife activity in that cramped enclave. It started out as just another nameless alley, and is now a multi-billion dollar mecca of restaurant, bar and musical activity. Not quite as busy these days as a year ago, perhaps, but it's still doing okay, I'm told.
So, where is the LKF of Shanghai? The one part of the city which will be the heart of the nightlife scene? There's a lot of money riding on the question, as you can imagine, and I am constantly being asked to be a consultant on different projects as people try to figure it out.
The big question is: WILL there be just one center to the nightlife of Shanghai, or will it be multi-polar, just like Shanghai in other ways? How many centers does daytime Shanghai have? There's the Bund, Pudong, Hongqiao, Huaihai Lu, the Portman area and Xujiahui . . .
How many centers does NIGHTTIME Shanghai have? Well, it's streets, not areas, for a start. There's Hengshan Lu, Sinan Lu, Julu Lu, Huaihai Lu, Xinhua Lu, Maoming Lu . . . Each of them feature a number of nightspots, which may or may not become the seed at the heart of the kernel from which bursts forth the one true LKF of Shanghai.
The answer is probably that there will be many different areas of the nightlife activity, rather than one that dominates. But there will still be a first amongst equals.
My guess? Hengshan Lu. From the Regal Hotel and the Groove, past the Oudeng Bowling Center and La Promenade up to Mandy's and Sasha's. Just off on the side is O'Malleys and George V (which surely has to hit its stride one day!!).
The downside of the Hengshan Lu argument is that it's all pretty dispersed along the road. But I'm looking to buy an apartment in the area. I figure property values are probably heading up, especially now that I've made my prediction!!!
Byeee!!!!
Entry for August 26, 1998
Also in the wings: a "New York-style post-modern coffee bar" which is being planned by a fashionable fashion designer from New York. Sounds fascinating, god knows what it means.
Pudong has a new premiere watering hole -- Dublin Express in the Shenmao Building. A sister for O'Malley's.
Idea #12 for beating the heat -- go shopping in Tops. The coolest and most ubiquitous supermarkets in town ...
The supremo blues, cd spinning, deep-voiced, pipe expert maestro of the Blues and Jazz Bar, Lin Dongfu, has taken his wife on a one month tour of Europe. Holding the fort at the B&J country residence is Steve Whitehouse, as in Monica but without the space. Steve will be preparing the territory for the arrival of a number of Lin's good friends from Canada who will be playing, strictly just for fun, at the bar during September.
Taxi Watch: There are suddenly a lot more Santana 2000's on the road which is good news for those who spend our entire lives racing from one side of the city to the other. Key advantage of the 2000 series -- the reading light above the door on the rear seat.
A curtain of trees has been put up to mark the dividing line between Sasha's and Mandy's on the corner of Hengshan Lu and Dongping Lu. As of writing, there is no visa control as you cross the border.
Footnote: The identity of Mandy has not yet been uncovered. Is she perhaps a sister to Sasha?
Byeee!!
Entry for August 24, 1998
No, waitress,just leave the bottle here: a major nightlife
establishment is planning to institute a "self - service bar" where you pay a certain sum and then get as much free booze as you can drink. This sounds like madness to us. But it should be a lot of fun on the first, and probably only,night of operation. More details as they become available.
Manager of swanky Hankow 50 restaurant down near the Bund, Maureen Leung, has departed to explore new opportunities, but swears that she's not leaving "our Shanghai".
Shanghai tailors have been famous throughout Asia for decades, but where do you get clothes made in the modern Shanghai? One possibility is King Chant Tailors, which deserves a because of the name if nothing else. We've no experience of His Royal Highness's work, but he's offering a men's suit for 800 yuan and a lady's suit for 750 yuan. Phone number: 6270-0668 and ( !!!!! ) email: kctailor@online.sh.cn. How about that? Order a suit by email!
If seems that the lions replaced in front of the old HK and shanghai bank building on the bund,now occupied by the pudong Development Bank, are not the original ones. The originais, it is said, are in the Shanghai Historical Museum.
Thai Wars update: The latest information is that one of the three contenders planning to set up a Thai restaurant has decided not to proceed. The prime location has been snapped up by a Japanese company which will put a beer house there instead. That's what Shanghai needs - another place in which to drink beer.
Manabe, one of the latest entrants in the coffee shop scene, has opened a new venue on Huashan Lu, in that cute little house - lef which used to be the rep office of Denon hi - fi. It's open 24 hours a day, and business is better than the other Manabe on Huating Lu. They have very strict set menus, but with some negotiation it's possible to just get scrambled eggs and coffee.
Byeee!!
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