It's getting to be that festive time, and Shanghai is ready to celebrate with Swing' Hai White Christmas at Mi Tierra and Winter Wonderland with that's Shanghai. If you're not a fan of holiday parties, there's plenty of other stuff to tide you over. On Saturday there are two great charity events happening - a food drive, and Gift of Life benefit at The Strip to help provide live-saving heart surgeries to children in need. Read on for details, or head over to our calendar for more. more ›

Fashion Friday is a brand new weekly column that will appear on Shanghaiist every Friday, 9am on the dot. Here's where you'll find the latest on what's hot, what's not, meet designers, and get your fix on fashion events going about in town. more ›

Isabelle Dugal-Thompson, the general manager of The Apartment, has sent the following statement to Shanghaiist in response to the accusation by a customer that she was manhandled by their bouncers and the altercations left her with bruises all over her body: more ›

The Apartment is a generally a pretty classy place, but one of our readers recently tipped us off to some shenanigans occurring over the weekend at the Yongfu Lu mainstay: more ›

The newest addition to Shanghai nightlight held their grand opening party this past Saturday. If you've visited The Apartment, you'll already have a feel for what The Geisha is like: lounge style, chic venue, but the same old Shanghai clubbing vibes. more ›

Multiple sources have told Shanghaiist that the police have been going around bars -- of all places! -- asking foreigners if they've got anything to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Apparently, the powers that be are worried that intoxicated laowai's might start to Occupy Shanghai? more ›

What: Ladies Night at glo London Lounge Bar more ›

Et tu, Hengshan Lu? In a follow up from yesterday’s post about the end of the sketchy Tongren Lu era, rumors are now spreading that the bars along Hengshan Lu are also on their way out. City officials argue that business along the street has been declining as upscale bars and clubs like those of Xintiandi take off, justifying the need to change things up. more ›

When it becomes difficult to distinguish Shanghai’s a luxury shopping center (West Nanjing Rd) from a level of hell from Dante’s Inferno (seedy bars full of sexy time), it gets locals thinking whether or not they’re sending the world the right message about Shanghai. In 2010, in preparation for the semi-world famous World Expo in Shanghai, the awkwardly located sketchy bars of Tongren Lu began to shut down. And now, a year later, some of the old establishments are being turned into calm and quaint coffee shops that will better “blend in with the ambiance” of West Nanjing Road. City officials still haven’t released or confirmed any other future plans for the street. more ›

We were just informed that Julien Stelmach, the charismatic operations manager of one of our favorite bars in Shanghai - The Rhumerie Bounty - passed away of heart disease last week. It's a very unfortunate loss: Julien was one of the friendliest, sweetest bar owners in the city. more ›

What we're being privy to is Apothecary cocktail bar and kitchen as it readies the opening of its Shanghai location. (Actually, we have bragging rights. Lee let us know we were the first people to be served at the new bar.) The place is a joint project between Leon Lee and Max E. Levy -- the latter you may know as the masterful chef from Bei, Opposite House. The duo have already created a stir on Beijing's dining and drinking scene for their emphasis on high-quality ingredients and attention to detail. One part mixologist's empyrean, one part fine Creole kitchen, Apothecary is now bringing its love of great food and drinks down south (and finally returning Creole food to Shanghai, we might add.) more ›

An electronic mailer sent out today by Mesa-Manifesto claims that the well-loved restaurant and bar will be evicted from their current location on Julu Road in a matter of months. The Chinese copy of the text, which differs slightly from the English, indicates that this has to do with the government's urban redevelopment plans. If you know of any other establishments in the neighbourhood receiving similar eviction notices, let us know in a comment below.
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First, there was Mint, then Drop, and now Prive has landed in Shanghai. Whoa, for a second there, I thought I was in Lan Kwai Fong. As expected, huge crowds descended on the Bund for the opening of the club, exacerbated by confused and dare we say it, several incompetent door staff. But once you shoved your way through the traffic jams at the elevators, it was a very decent party with all the right elements. more ›

Nick Taylor of City Weekend has edited his account of what happened at Velvet Lounge on Wednesday evening. The new story makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Love it!:

At Velvet Lounge last night I was charged twice for a drink. I paid by card, entered my pin, then was asked to enter it again because it didn't work. more ›

Every Friday, Weekendist brings you our picks of the best of what's coming in the next three days. more ›

Nick Taylor of City Weekend shares with us his horrible experience of getting overcharged for drinks at Velvet Lounge and tells you why you should sign up for ICBC's text alerts:

At Velvet Lounge last night I was charged twice for a drink. I paid by card, entered my pin, then was asked to enter it again because it didn't work. more ›

Spotted by Dan Washburn right outside the entrance to Club G Plus at Xintiandi:
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Nick Taylor of City Weekend writes:

Our friends at Muse tell us they have received notice from the powers that be that they have to close at 2am from now on. Last orders will be at 1:30am, then everyone has to leave the club. more ›

Everyone we've been talking to has been curious as to how the owners and investors of the new club in town could have blown US$15 million and still made it look like crap, so we got in touch with the Las Vegas architect Cagley & Tanner that is supposed to have designed the club. Below an exchange of emails between us and them: more ›

Didn't make it to Obama Club's soft launch on Monday? Worry not! Their "hard launch" is coming up real soon, we hear! But in the meanwhile, we've got videos from Monday night for you! Be sure to watch all three... it just gets better and better!
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Oh my Obama. The first thing we noticed when we arrived for the Obama Club’s soft opening party last night is that the place is massive! You could see the sign from two minutes away in a cab and we were already wondering how much they spent on the Las Vegas styled water display out front. No sign of the pink leg that was on their logo so that was a bit of a disappointment. Said to be designed by renowned American interior designers Cagley and Tanner from Las Vegas, the circular built club however had a familiar karaoke glow (think CashBox 钱柜) to it with golden fixtures and golden dance poles. more ›

One of my former co-workers is now working with the club, and threw a relatively small gathering for their birthday there a few weeks ago, which I had the good fortune of attending. I'll admit, the styling is a bit typically Chinese gaudy, but I have to disagree on it being "yet another cheesy karaoke place." more ›

And quite frankly it looks like it's going to be yet another cheesy karaoke place (despite what they'd like us to think). At least that's the impression we got from the website, which doesn't allow you to turn off its very annoying music. But like the guys from Huffington Post and Vanity Fair, we're still looking forward to their soft opening on April 26. It's just, it's just... we haven't gotten their invitations yet. more ›

FYI: Bar Rouge is re-opening after its three-week-long renovation TONIGHT just in time for F1 afterparties. If that Bund establishment really isn't your thing - how about Windows Scoreboard? The grand re-opening is on Saturday and includes a free open bar from 9 to 11 followed by a late night happy hour. UPDATE: Actually, they're holding back on the opening. Windows Too will carry that deal in its place though! And if THAT doesn't please you... well, the new Rhumerie Bounty on Yongfu Lu (right on top of Shelter) should have opened by now. Go check that out. more ›

Our most recent visit to the Windows Too bar in the Jing'an district revealed these hilarious posters. It looks like our favorite purveyor of dirt cheap drinks and equally cheap food has turned to The Simpsons to warn people off illegal behavior. And so: to illustrate the ban on gambling, there's Bart, Lisa and lil' Maggie in an intense game of poker; to show how prostitution isn't allowed, there's Homer grabbing a redhead's tit and offering her some Maojamins; and to warn against doing drugs, there's a Krusty the Clown-ish officer pulling... is that a pill out of Bart's butt? Marge would not approve. more ›

• BTW, there's another Asia Uncut tomorrow and the main guest? Well, his name starts with Jack and ends with EEchen. We hope they ask him about his Shanghai museum, what ever happened to that? Free entry plus free booze and food at reception as always. Contact tickets@asiauncut.com to RSVP.
• Okay, so there's this place in Pudong that has a two-kilo hamburger and since the butcher is now leaving, they're doubling the debauchery. Now you can go to Yasmine's and get a four-kg monster. If you manage to finish it, you'll not only have you 198RMB burger fee waived, but you'll also get a 200RMB certificate for the butchers shop. Can you put that towards your upcoming coronary? [SmartShanghai]
• Cityweekend takes a look at some of Shanghai's coziest bars, including some that have ANIMALS in them! ANIMALS! OMG OMG OMG! [Cityweekend]

Windows Scoreboard, the cheapest sports bar in town, is closing up their shop on Huaihai Lu this Saturday. Before you turn on the waterworks though, this doesn't mean they're gone for good. They'll be taking over the newly reopened Jing'an location while they finalize their digssomewhere else, says Smart Shanghai. And besides, all the moving around just means more parties. The WinScor Huaihai closing party is this Saturday and on Sunday, WinToo celebrates becoming WinScorToo by offering free beer from 10pm to 11pm. more ›

Shanghai has an ephemeral nature: with the breakneck pace of modernization, it seems like the city is a little bit different every day, changing right under our noses. With all that constant progress comes an ever changing cast of cultural venues: every year, we find our favorite places to rest and relax going the way of the collective farm, only to be replaced with entirely new and fascinating ones that catch our attention. We spend a lot of our time exploring the great things our city has to offer, especially the ones that serve us alcohol: to top off our year of intrepid boozing, here's a list of our favorite new bars, clubs and lounges that have popped up over the past year. more ›

CNNGo went around Shanghai's bars and clubs recently in a confusing article about air quality. Confusing namely because they said they're testing for the best and worst, but only six bars/clubs make the story and, really, the only one that got lambasted was The Shelter, which had a ppm ([thousand] parts per million of criteria pollutants) of 350. Regular air quality in Shanghai is 230 and the U.S. FDA says 150 is in the high end of the safe zone. Because we needed an air quality meter to tell us that it hurts to breathe in The Shelter. Anyway, apparently one of the best places to go for a breath of fresh air is Sin. But while your lungs will feel clean, can all the ventilation there stop your soul from feeling dirty? more ›

• Xinhua has a fun little photo gallery about a cooking competition that was held to greet the Shanghai World Expo. [Xinhua]


• Speaking of food, do you spend money on food like Kanye spends time in the spotlight? Then step up to the challenge and try to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner all for under 25rmb. [Urbanatomy]


• Here’s an update on the adjustment of the one child policy. Due to revisions in the policy some families will be able to have more than one child. Check it out. [BBC]