Shanghai China Snippets Observations about living in Shanghai and China in general

A couple of years ago already I went to Pasti on their old location. This spot is now occupied by Napoli while Pasti moved to a old villa only footsteps away. A lot more space and the food even better. I have been a couple of times now and even ordered in using their convenient website.

Food

The food is good quality Italian pizzas and salads.

Pizzas have thin crusts and fully topped, salads are well dressed.

The pastas I tried where not as good as the pizza but then again, I really like their pizza.
(more…)

I was cleaning up old magazines and ran into an issue of SH Magazine. On the last page of each issue there is small column called, “How to”.

Sometimes this column is slightly useful, many times it’s cynical. The one I read was funny for the last reason.

How to .. Open a restaurant in Shanghai (more…)

It was Sunday and we were in the mood for some brunch. Instead of going to one of the hotel buffets that can be quite good value for money, we wanted something else. Flipping through the free expat magazines I noticed Indalo. A Spanish brunch that starts at 14:00 ‘o clock. It fitted perfectly with our schedule. We took a taxi and ended up on the corner of Sinan Lu and Xiangshan Lu.

As it turned out we had the whole place for ourselves which wasn’t as bad as it sounds. (more…)

We had something to celebrate and after having read many raving reviews [internal href] of Spanish restaurant El Willy we decided to try them out.
Looking forward to some tapas and paella we were made our way to Donghu Lu. Entering a nicely decorated alley we decided to sit inside. They have a big outdoor seating but rain was in the air.

The Verdict in Short

The verdict in short, nice location, nice decoration, nice food, friendly though slow service, expensive and the fact that they charged for bread without even mentioning it won’t make us come back

When I made a reservation i was first told they were full, but as we were 2 persons, there was a table available after all. (it turned out that the restaurant was not decenty full but not packed).

Food

The menu is not huge and slightly hard to read as it’s rather colorful but we read our way through and started with several tapas. First their King Fish in Vinegar (50 Rmb) and their Shrimp in a mushroom canelloni coconut truffle(65 Rmb) arived. For the last one the mushroom taste was a bit overbearing. A bit later we tasted the Seared Foie Gras (75 Rmb) which had a nice aftertaste and their decent Garden salad.
Part of the fun of eating is dipping bread in the sauces of the dishes. Little did we know at that the time of ordering that the price for 5 small pieces of bread is 20 Rmb which borders on hospitality stingyness.

Wanting to try at least one of their paellas we went for the squid and cuttlefish version. Pitch-black rice mixed with seafood made it its way to our table. It looked good, the taste was rather monotone but I admit I’m not a paella connaisseur.

Drinks

We drank an excellent bottle of white dry wine, Peter Lehman Semillon (280 Rmb). We had also some watercooler water after we declined the choosing between bottles of sparkling and non-sparkling water.

Service

The staff is very friendly and what I really appreciated was that they had made the reservation personal by having a handwriite note on the table, saying Welcome to El Willy plus my name

Toilets

I didn’t go but heard there pretty ok and clean.

Environment

Verdict

We had a nice evening, enjoyed most of the food although not mind blowing and were pleased with the service although they were a bit slow.

Then the bill arrived and we were surprised.

El Willy is already not one of the cheapest and charging 20 Rmb for a small basket of bread is just sad, especially if you don’t tell on forehand. It should be part of the service and unfortunately, it left behind an uncomfortable feeling that wanted El Willy wants to squeeze out the last mao. The restaurant does have a great terrace and inside it’s well designed. Despute that, I doubt of I’ll visit them again.

Totally Spent

Persons: 2
Time:3 hrs
Money: 820 Rmb

Address

El Willy Spanish Restaurant
20 Donghu Lu. (cross street Huai Hai Lu)
Tel: + 86 21 5404 5757
Daily 11:00 am – 1:00 pm (closed on Sunday)
Website: http://elwilly.com.cn/

Other Reviews to average the experiences:

SHmag
Shanghaiist
City Weekend

You can read here more Shanghai Restaurant Reviews

Disclaimer: All opinions are biased, based on non-existent food knowledge and influenced by the mood of the moment.

On a recent Saturday night I spent my first evening at Cotton’s.

It must have something to do with the fact that I’m not single that I’m still pretty much a Shanghai nightlife virgin or maybe I’m just old.

I enjoyed myself so much, thanks to the many Gin Tonics, that we decided to have brunch there the next day. The Sunday weather was sunny so the garden made for an excellent spot.

Cotton’s Food

European Classic Brunch- 65

Basket of croissants, dark bread, French bread, and toast, butter, jam, honey, Gruyère cheese, Ementaler cheese, Meat Platter and yogurt (inc. a coffee)

It’s more than enough to satisfy you for breakfast as well as lunch. A real brunch in that sense. The bread was a little to enthusiastically toasted. The ham, salami and cheese were generous. More butter makes it even better.

Prime beefsteak – 88 Rmb

A big steak that went down well. They forgot to ask us how we wanted it, and well, we forgot to tell them. A bit more medium would have made it even better. Accompanied with French herb butter/ baked potatoes or french fries, salad

Tea – 30 Rmb – refilled with hot water

An apple cinnamon tea. Getting additional hot water is no problem.

Coffee – 20 Rmb

Served with a can of hot milk.

Ice water – Free

Nice and indeed very cold due to an abundance of ice cubes

Cotton’s Service

A mixture of expats and [tag]Chinese[/tag] waiters/waitresses. Very friendly and accommodating.

[tag]Cotton[/tag]’s Toilets

It’s always the toilets. Not much wrong with it as far as cleanliness goes.

The lock on the door was broken but they promised to fix this. (I went there last night and although a week has passed the lock is still broken.

I know this is [tag]China[/tag] but but my concept of privacy goes beyond blocking the door with my shoes. FIX THAT LOCK) The sitting part is not very spacious but has the upswing of a view on banana leaves. Water pressure from the tap is very light

Cotton’s Environment

An old villa, it seems I only go to old villas these days. This old French villa, dating back to the 1930’s, is nicely renovated with a great terrace surrounded by trees and flowers.

Overall impression of Cotton’s

A very nice spot for having your brunch on a sunny autumn day. Non-intruding music, good simple food and service.

Totally Spent

Time : 3 hours
Money : 223 Rmb

Cottons [tag]Shanghai[/tag] Address

132 Anting Lu / Jian Guo Xi Lu, Shanghai
(right on the corner)
Tel: +86–21-64337995
Daily: 10am-late

Other Reviews to average the experiences:

Smartshanghai
Cityweekend

Disclaimer: All opinions are biased, based on non-existent food knowledge and influenced by the mood of the moment.

On Changele Lu you find a lovely hidden garden with tables around it and you can also eat Greek food here. Aegean was recently opened, and is probably the only Greek restaurant in Shanghai. We were in the neighborhood and gave it a try.

Food

Tzatziki – 30 Rmb

The traditional Greek drained plain yogurt sauce that has to be right in a Greek restaurant. Luckily it was and there were complimentary pita pieces and 3 small rolls. Why 3 when you are with 2 is probably a Greek riddle.

Calamari, with lemon and shellfish sauce (if I tasted it correctly) – 55 Rmb

Not bad, crispy and a slight reminiscence of Crete (the part of the Island without bars) which is a good thing.

Greek Salad – 50 Rmb

The salad was ok, it had the feta, the olives (a couple), the tomato and pieces of green.

Kokoras Krassatos – 75 Rmb

We didn’t eat this before so it was a blind order. It’s thick pasta with what I belief chicken. A generous serving, pasta doesn’t cost too much, and tasteful although a bit bland.

Souvlaki with Pita Bread – 72 Rmb

3 stingy pieces of pork and chicken with a lost onion ring in between. That was the Souvlaki. I knew it would be pork and not lamb as it should, I didn’t know they would save on the green pepper.

Wine

Soave Villa Cornaro Veneto, white – 180

Very nice dry wine. Pricey but worth it.

Service

Honestly. Well, here we go. If I eat jiaozi in a hole in the wall joint, I understand I shouldn’t expect service. If I pay almost 500 Rmb it would be nice if the wine cooler would come with the wine. The male waiter couldn’t pretend to like his job and we had to wall our plates as he preferred to take them away half full. On top of that he had little trust in our solvability. He counted the 100 rmb notes in front of us. The waitress had a smile so keep her and fire the bloke on the spot.

Toilets

Is there a correlation between the cleanliness of the toilets and the quality of the food?

That would go much too far in this case but I must admit that I wasn’t impressed with the state of the toilets.

They were a little dirty and smelly actually. Easy to fix but often neglected.

Environment

Very nice. A lovely hidden garden with plenty of tables on the terrace. Also the many flowers give it an authentic feel. The typical colors blue and white are everywhere so on that part there has been a finishing touch.

Overall

The food was below expectation, the setting was excellent and the service was tragic.

Train the waiters, clean the toilets (use some lavender for the smell), upgrade the food and start offering some free [tag]Tzatziki[/tag]. That would make the whole experience fit the location better.

Totally Spent

Time: 2.5 hrs
Money: 462 Rmb

Aegean Greek Restaurant
333 Changle Lu / close to Shaanxi Lu
(behind Secret Garden restaurant)
Tel: +86–21-5403-1850/13601668257
Daily: 10am-11pm

Other [tag]Reviews[/tag] to average the experiences:

Shanghaiist
Cityweekend

Disclaimer: All opinions are biased, based on non-existent food knowledge and influenced by the mood of the moment.

The taxi driver stops and tells us we have arrived. Looking around it’s pretty hard to spot the entrance of Shintori Restaurant. I see a big grey wall but.. hey there is an opening.

Wandering inside reveals a small garden with bamboo at the end of which a door slides open once approached. One more slide and we see the inside of a former factory hall. Modern and very open, including the kitchen, is the best word to describe it.

But in the end a location can be grand, small, modern or passé, the only thing that matters is the food.

We ordered a medium plate of Sashimi (200 Rmb), a plate of Tempura, some Beef Teriyaki as well as some small fusion dishes. The sashimi was very fresh, the tuna perfect, the tempura not bad at all but that said, for me it’s always hard to taste the difference between anything that is deep-fried.

Quality wise definitely good, taste wise also good.

Is it better than the many revolving band Japanese restaurants? Yes, but the portions are definitely too small and slightly over priced. Service was average. Not bad but they had to be reminded of some of our orders while it wasn’t that busy.

The non-food highlight was the option to pee against the window. (Men toilets only I guess).

Shintori Restaurant
803 Julu Lu / cross street Fuming Lu
Tel: +86–21-5404-5252
Open daily: Mon-Fri 5.30-11pm
Sat-Sun 11.30am-2pm 5-11pm

How to get there:
Metro Line #2 Jing An Temple (15 minutes walk)

Disclaimer: All opinions are biased, based on non-existent food knowledge and influenced by the mood of the moment