This week in Shanghaiist
Greek munching: The Fat Olive, another recent David Laris project, serves some pretty good food. It's just that there's not very much of it. We went there a couple of weeks back and became smitten with the burger, which is served open-faced on a pita that cushions the drizzling juice from the tender, glazed patty. The meat on the kebabs were big, succulent, with a hint of spice but overwhelming original in flavor. A basket of toasted pita and tangy tzatziki were able sidekicks. But as far as mains go, that's about it. The Fat Olive is more for imbibing than it is is for eating, what with that huge terrace and the glam view of Pudong. Snacking on some simple Greek offerings is probably the more operative term. Check it out.
Comfort sandwiches: New restaurant Southern Belle looks to wrap up construction and throw itself upon the city. According to their website: "Southern Belle represents a combination of a Bar and Restraurant [sic] for the discerning US Southerner, with both an extensive bar and delightful sandwiches." Located on Changle Lu near Xiangyang Lu (where a forgettable bistro used to reside, as we recall), we are curious what discerning US Southerners eat besides sandwiches with their booze. Grand opening is on June 6th at 2 pm. (thanks to @terencelau for the tip!)
CW Readers' Choice, and rebuttal: As we mentioned a few days ago, the winners of City Weekend's annual Reader's Choice Awards were announced last week at a big bash and in the May 28th issue. Now, there's some gentle hoi polloi backlash from a local chef at some of the results, which you can read here. Personally, we're all for Cantina Agave winning for best newcomer, since, well, we had that religious experience the first time we ate there.
The Fat Olive - 6th Floor, 228 Xizhang Lu, near Huaihai Lu (西藏路228号6楼, 近淮海路) Tel: 6334-3288 Hours: 9:30am - late
Eric Hu is Shanghaiist's Food Editor. Email tips, recommendations, and news and gossip about Shanghai's food scene to food at shanghaiist.com.
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Hopefully they will have po-boys.
I definitely agree on the CW results. The magazine's purpose (same with that's) is promoting business in Shanghai, so they can't be too critical of anything.
A very un-southern experience!
Sunday afternoons are reserved for a small group of us to go try new places to eat and shop enjoying our favorite day of the week. This weekend was unfortunately not as good as we had expected. We all woke up and decided we would go to try SOUTHERN BELLE. Excited for some hearty true southern food, and expecting rich and intense flavors and that loving southern hospitality we could not have been more disappointed. We arrived at the venue where most lights were turned off (perhaps they were being environmentally friendly which I defiantly approve of) but it seemed dim and not very inviting. After sitting down and being handed a extremely boring selection of menu items we made our choices. 3 people ordered the SHRIMP GUMBO, 1 order of Kebabs, 1 order of Chicken wings, 1 order of cheese quesadilla.
The food took an extremely long time to arrive considering there were NO other people in the restaurant, besides ourselves, we thought it was unacceptable. First came the quesadillas, they arrived as 5 small pieces on a plate with 3 pieces of sliced carrots, 3 slices of eggplant and a few pieces of a potato salad. Over all the dish looked plain white and boring. We were curious when the waitress did not come back with any sauce at all, and had to GET UP out of my seat and walk to the front of the restaurant, exit and go outside to look for her. As I sat down the manager (with cigar in mouth) came over asked what was wrong and then let me know that they do not serve any sort of sauce or guacamole or salsa with their quesadillas. I have never been to a place street style of high end that doesn’t provide sauce with this kind of dish. It was dry and plain un acceptable. Finally I was given some BBQ sauce to use. For 50 RMB I didn’t understand why they couldn’t give us sauce. Half way through finishing the quesadilla came the kebab. 3 very small skewers which had vegetable between them for 70 RMB this was a rip off, it came with the same garnishes as the quesadilla . The pieces of meat were small and dry and did not prove to be a generous American meal. Then came ONE serving of gumbo. The other two arrived almost 10 minutes after. A plate of rice and a small bowl of gumbo that would make people from the south feel shame. The bowl contained around 5 pieces of shrimp and was bland. When the two other gumbo dishes finally arrived they had boiling hot bowls and cold gumbo. It had obviously been microwaved. Then came the wings. 6 small pieces of chicken. They were from the smallest chickens the kind you buy in the local lian hua for 6 rmb a pack. They were not marinated fully, and the little tasteless marinating that they did do was so bare minimum it might as well have not been done. 6 small chicken pieces for 60 RMB is SHAMEFUL for a southern meal.
When it comes to new restaurants, we well understand that they need to be given a leeway. HOWEVER this is the real reason this review had to be written. When we were leaving the “manager” the same one that mentioned the quesadillas needed no sauce asked us how the meal was, we felt like it was important to tell him it was not as good as we expected, and we were being friendly in manner in real hopes that he would be able to improve the place. We explained that we had lived in the US and this really wasn’t what we expected as we understand true American food. He shot us down with a reply “THIS IS CHINA”, in a defensive arrogant manner. Giving the impression that because we are in China it is ok to serve BAD food at HIGH prices. As a foreign man managing this place, we expected much more than this sort of an answer. As a person in the service industry he should know better. You cannot improve a place if you don’t wish to listen to people that are spending their time after paying high prices to tell you how they really feel and hope you can improve. We were extremely disappointed in the food, the prices, the environment and especially the manager.
We would defiantly not return to this place, neither will recommend others to this place, and feel the need to let others know as well. Should the manager have been more courteous and not quite as arrogant as he was and offered an apology we would have felt better.
The overall experience left us with such a bad taste in our mouths and minds that this would be a place we would recommend to someone as an Aprils fools joke.