A venue last seen in Shanghai

Shanghaiist was browsing around on SHExpat Forums yesterday, and came across a thread discussing the loss of one of Shanghai's renowned cheap eating establishments — Turk's.

To our recollection, Turk's Restaurant was last seen on Xiangyang Road's restaurant strip during the final days of the old fake market's death-throes. The row of shops that occupied the western boundaries of the old market was soon reduced to rubble along with the remainder of a big portion of that city block. We wish that Turk's was able to persist in its old location just like the highly resilient Xiangyang Market China Post branch that thumbed its bizi at the sledgehammer long after any of its neighbours had "lost their plot" so to speak.

We certainly miss the cheap and tasty chicken kebabs, and the Turkish pizza combo. Turk's was never high-end eating, but it did meet our Middle-Eastern greasy spoon food cravings at a reasonable price.

To our knowledge, the only eating establishment that relocated from that site was Cafe Montmartre which reappeared relatively recently in the New Factories area, in northern Jing'an District.

But Turk's isn't the only low to medium-end establishment that appears to have dropped off our culinary radar due to Shanghai's development rush. Just before last Christmas, we discovered that one of our favourite Uyghur restaurants, Yakexi, had suddenly been replaced by an empty lot. It also appears that even franchised restaurants seem to be having a tough time of it. The Da Qing Hua branch on Changde Lu, sometimes referred to affectionately as "the wooden-stump seat dumpling restaurant with a huge wooden penis in the men's bathroom" by friend's of Shanghaiist, is currently undergoing deconstruction for what we assume is part of the ongoing expansion of Shanghai's Metro system. At least we can still get a Dongbei food fix at other locations around Shanghai, but unfortunately there will be no other moments of poetic brilliance.

As we reported last week, Shanghai's development boom has also impinged on the operation of one of this city's better eating establishments. Speaking from personal experience, we are certain that along with several other patrons, we won't be sorry to see the service at 239 disappear either.

Our friends over at SmartShanghai have been compiling a list of venues that have closed, reopened under new names, or those that are in a state of transition like one of our favourite day-time haunts, Zurigo.

Despite our indepth Google searches and casual browsing of this city's finest expat magazine listings, we've been unable to establish if these lost restaurants have found a new business location. So dear readers, it is up to you to help your fellow Shanghairen out.

Do you know where these places have gone? Have you lost a different favourite place that has seemingly dropped off the map? Let us know.

Photo taken from the cover of Howard S. Turk's mystery/thriller release, "Last Seen In Shanghai".