Food/Drink: March 2008 Archives

Though this article is a little old, from Reuters we learn that McDonald's is expanding its delivery service, which we first wrote about way back when. Apparently, demand for home delivery was strong but the restaurants could only meet orders within walking distance. But now, after spending the past year outsourcing its delivery operations and investing in 300 motorcycles across its 42 locations, McDonald's is in a better position to compete with rival Yum! restaurants KFC and Pizza Hut, which have been delivering to customers for years. McDonald's said last month it would......

So our search for alcohol-fueled Friday lunches led us to New Heights the other week. Antipasti lunch buffet with soup and a complimentary glass of wine sound exactly like what we need. The restaurant was relatively empty, the kind that is good for a chatty girlfriends lunch, an obligatory lunch with your workplace counselor or just a quiet meal by yourself taking in the bund view. While the spread doesn't look like much, it actually offers a good assortment of antipasti including the usual smoked meats, salmon, cheese and fresh vegetables (with......

This Shanghaiist has been living in our fair town for over four years, most of it spent searching for two things: the love of a beautiful woman and a great, authentic burrito. While we're still striking out on the woman front, we're inching ever closer on that elusive burrito, first with the action-packed weekend special from NYC Deli, and now with the cheesy wonder found at Taikang Lu's Togo taco stand. And by stand, we literally mean stand. Togo is a 1.5 square meter operation that churns out......

There was a time when we took visitors requesting to eat traditional Peking duck to one of the many Duck King (鸭王) restaurants scattered about town, knowing that they'd be getting a decent and passable version of the dish that so famously belongs to our capitol in the north. We always tempered our expectations when it came to finding the crispy fowl fat here in Shanghai. Those days are now gone. After trying Xindalu, we know exactly where we'll be taking our guests the next time they request some authentic Peking duck action.......

Photos here and here Recently we've had the pleasure of dining in two local restaurants in Qingpu Town, technically part of Shanghai but very close to Jiangsu Province, and both times our plates, bowls, cups and spoon came vacuum packed in plastic, supposedly "sanitized" for our pleasure. We had never seen this before, despite having dined at our fair share of greasy spoons throughout the country. But the folks we ate with last night said plastic wrapped tableware is actually quite common, not only in Qingpu, but in Chongqing and other cities......

We liked Backyard Cafe. We like its successor, Kakadu, even more. After proclaiming that we were going to visit the new Australian restaurant during the Spring Festival holiday, we did as we always do and ended up lazing in bed instead. We finally made our first trip down there, and are happy to report that Kakadu is what this particular diner is always pleased to find in Shanghai: quality uniqueness. We profess to be quite the ignoramuses when it comes to Australian food and culture, so we had some help from the affable Aussie co-owner and manager,......

We root for any joint that is ballsy enough to open up on Dagu Lu, the strip where many a restaurant has gone to die a lonely, customer-less death. So it was with a considerable measure of hope that we entered Kitchen 88, the few-months-old Chinese restaurant right next to everyone's favorite DVD stores. Maybe the proprietors here would be able to break from the pack and show a little more lasting power. With a bit of sadness, we have to say we don't see it happening. Kitchen 88 does give off a good......

Can't get enough about Hamilton House? We came across this short video piece from New Zealand's TV3 on our very own Hamilton House, which we enjoy visiting quite a bit. General Manager Richard Xavia is a Kiwi, and the angle of the piece is about how a place like Hamilton House is attractive to the increasingly sophisticated tastes of the young elite. Not a mind-blowing point to make for those of us here, of course, but perhaps it is a little eye-opening for those in New Zealand, a country with a......

It wasn't until we read this interview in Salon with Jennifer 8. Lee (and that's not a typo, folks), New York Times journalist and author of the book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, that we suddenly realized that it has been forever since we've had beef with broccoli or General Tso's chicken. We think it's because we haven't made room in our ordering agenda given the unbelievable amount of variety and selection in Shanghai in terms of Chinese food. The interview definitely wants to make us......

Most Shanghaiist readers are familiar with legendary dive bar C’s and with the music pub Logo too. Darkness, taxi rides and alcohol make the rest of the area a bit of a blur but we have the benefit of living there. The area, called The Xinhua Community, is centered around Xinhua Lu’s heritage architecture and greenery. We covered this a bit by introducing J. G. Ballard’s old home in a previous post. It also has the Shanghai Film Art Centre, a City Shop, Redtown, rooftop soccer, Yuyin Tang (in the top corner) and......

We dropped by Hamilton House last Friday for lunch, something we should have done earlier maybe. (Actually, we had headed over on Thursday but the restaurant was closed for a private wine tasting event.) So there was a decent lunch crowd – enough to make you want to enter yet not too many people to make you wonder if you’ll need to wait all day to get served – and the lunch menu seems quite a bargain, RMB 90 for 2 courses or RMB 120 for 3. We were game to try......

Photo from danwashburn Way back in '04, when we were young(ish) and brazen, we declared that Da Marco on Yandang Lu had the best pizza in Shanghai. "I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life," is what we said. It was easier to be so sure-minded about pizza back then, because there were very few reasonable options Shanghai. Are there more now? We think so. But perhaps, after nearly six years, our definition of "reasonable pizza" has changed a bit. Da Marco may very well still have the......

The corner of Fumin Lu and Julu Lu is a hotspot for expat diners: Nepali Kitchen, Shintori, Guyi, Otto, Coconut Paradise, and Mesa. But smack dab in the middle are also a handful of Chinese restaurants that don't get much mention in our beloved English-language rags. We checked one of them out recently and have now added Hui Yuan Fang (汇元坊) to the list of worthy destinations located within that intersection. We're not big fans of Shanghainese food, but we're familiar with the high standards that are set for the cuisine, and are appreciative......