Home sweet home

I was in Beijing for a few days this week just to check it out and see how our capital is doing these days. When I returned to our fair city it was in the happy knowledge that Shanghai is less polluted and has less of a traffic problem than the capital. Beijing has its advantages - cultural diversity, range of restaurants and venues, live music etc. But in terms of livability, I think we in Shanghai have the upper and, right?!

Better red than...anything!!

Red, the new disco wine bar on the second floor of the Promenade on Hengshan Lu opened recently with a blast of a party. The bar and the dancefloor was packed with chinese models, let's hope they keep up that part. Our hosts include a bunch of the usual suspects - canny operators all - including Michelle of 1221, Luke of DD's fame, Rose of 1931, and Andrew Chan of Startz. If they can't pull a crowd in, no one can. Despite its name the dominant color inside is a steely grey. So where does the name come from? Their address, in a really macro sort of way, of course, is Red comma China. Maybe that's it.

Not so hot

Shanghai's best sichuan restaurant, 100 Family Names (Baijia Xing), on Jiangning Lu, near Westgate Mall, seems to have closed forever, unfortunately. The sign on the door out front namely says that it is closed for the day to fix gas problems and that it will open again tomorrow. Well now I've passed the place many times the last three weeks, but nothing has changed; the sign is still hanging there with no sign of the doors being unlocked in the near future and the wok being fired up again. So I have given up on this restaurant and I guess I've got to find a new sichuan restaurant, anybodys got any good suggestions?

Spam

Meanwhile, Peter Mackie down at ZooBaa really believes in the principle of "doing a good job of propaganda", at least via the medium of email. His latest submission tells of an "all you can eat & drink" dinner for 150 RMB. It sounds like a pretty good deal to me even though it doesn't say whether spam is on the menu, but it seems logical that it would be!!

That's all for this time...See you again next week. Byyyyeeeeeeeeee!!