Results tagged “bluefrog”

Speaking of Tongren Lu, one of the few classier establishments on that strip is now shutting its doors. Blue Frog, which has occupied its spot there for the last five or six years, has decided not to renew its lease. They didn't give us a specific reason why they're closing up shop, but they will be throwing a goodbye party on Friday. Guess we'll stop by to dry our tears on some of those delicious burgers and reminisce about how they hosted one of our first happy hours ever.

Proving that our friends to the north have nuthin' on us when it comes to cuisine, places that had actually gotten their start in Shanghai were extraordinarily well represented at The Beijinger's 6th Annual Reader Restaurant Awards, presented a couple of days ago.

As credit crunches, and exchange rates plummet, it's time for fancy cocktails to step aside for our old favourite: cheap beer.

Adam Schokora of Danwei points us to this audio recording of a "disgruntled customer lecturing a telephone operator at a well-known, city-wide food delivery company based in Shanghai". Do a bit of research and you'll find there's only one food delivery company in town that delivers Blue Frog and it happens to be an advertiser on Shanghaiist. Does the voice of this douchebag sound familiar to any of you readers out there? We say unleash the foreign internet mobsters on this guy!

Over this weekend, Blue Frog celebrated its grand opening in Macau's Venetian in a glitzy event that featured performances by Shaolin monks, Australian DJ Alex Taylor and Shanghai's very own Sugar Mama and the Cotton Club Band. Apparently, quite a number of people flew over from Shanghai for the event (too bad for us, we were never invited). In this video, Blue Frog looks a lot more like a club than anything else, and certainly...

For all displaced Americans and tryptophan lovers, consider these lovely Thanksgiving dinner options for tomorrow night in our cozy little Chinese metropolis:

CARMEN RESTAURANT: Carmen Restaurant recently materialised on Xikang Lu, near the even newer Steak and Eggs. Passing by, what caught our eye was their blackboard promotion for all you can drink: 50RMB for chicks and 80RMB for blokes. Went inside and discovered the deal was just for draught beer (Carlsberg) and cocktails. OK, could be acceptable, but decided we'd better try their cocktails first before committing to an all-out drink fest. Winopete chose a G&T that was actually quite decent. A friend opted for vodka and tonic which was also quite satisfactory. What was not so good was being hurried into deciding did we want the all-u-can-drink deal or single drinks, and also being asked to pay before a sip of alcohol had passed our lips. Furthermore, this night a bunch of rowdy German card players to descended around us which led to the staff cranking up the music to a very conversation-unfriendly level. The timing of both these events led to us upping and leaving. The mouldy-looking furniture for a brand new venue is never going to earn brownie points with me, but a decent all-you-can-drink deal grabs our attention, especially given the dwindling reputation of Bon Bon. The bottom line is we'll try Carmen again.

During our times in the suburbs of New Jersey (don't hate), the American restaurant chain Applebee's was always a friendly place for meals with family and late night gatherings with friends. All of those nostalgic feelings came rushing back as Shanghaiist read some rumors on the internets about the opening of the chain's first outlet in China. With our curiosity peaked, we decided to go check it out. As Shanghaiist and accompanying guest entered the...

Shanghaiist really needed a break and what better place to take that break than... the Venetian? I know what you're thinking: biggest casino in the world + gambling Chinese tourists = a big fat headache. Well, it wasn't that bad, really. The Venetian was fully booked over the weekend so we could only get one night at the Vegas transplant... which was quite enough for us. The casino is an exact replica of its Vegas hotel, except about ten times bigger, and just as gawdy and tacky... which makes it perfect for the throngs of Chinese crossing the border each day. The casino (which looked to be the size of several football fields) was completely packed both Friday and Saturday, and reached a fever pitch around midnight both nights. The big game in Macau is Baccarat, which is a glorified version of high/low, and a electronic version of Roulette called SicBo that is played with dice. The second level was the shopping plaza, complete with false "Venetian style" storefronts, canals and singing gondola drivers (see picture). Shanghaiist doesn't gamble (except for hold 'em poker, which isn't offered in any casino in Macau!), but was content just watching other people throw their hard earned money away.

The $2.4 billion Venetian Macao Resort Hotel is finally open for business on Macau's Cotai, and can you believe our local Blue Frog is somewhere in that building? Las Vegas Sands claims the 10.5 million square foot Venetian — twice the size of the Las Vegas original — is the largest building in Asia. Sands' next casino in Asia -- which at US$3.6 billion will be one of the costliest casino-resorts ever -- will open up in Singapore. But reports have come in that the development cost will swell by up to US$1.44 billion due to an Indonesian sand ban. Fuelled by strong growth in gaming revenues, the Macau economy has ballooned 28.9% in the first half of the year.

We just got word that Blue Frog will be opening a restaurant at the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel on August 28th. From their press release:

Now, that felt like a 4th of July party (and some Canadians in attendance said it wasn't a bad effort for Canada Day, either). Hot, sweaty weather. No rain! Hamburgers. Beer. Live music. Water balloons. Hamburgers. Beer. Drinking contests. Fireworks (albeit during daylight). Hamburgers. Beer. Ketchup battles. Some guy from Beijing getting pantsed. Hamburgers. Beer.

As much as you want of the above for 150 kuai.

There was a lot of buzz among Shanghaiist's circle of friends about the recent addition to Shanghai's burger scene: ROK-based chain Kraze Burger in Xujiahui. We'd heard good things: cheap food, clean environment, great k-pop music videos and, of course, decent burgers. It wasn't that hopes were necessarily high, it's just that we had hopes. Hopes that Xujiahui would become a burger destination once again--not since the area branch of Rendezvous Cafe closed has the southwestern district laid claim to that title.

Photo from theshanghaieye.

Unfortunately, Shanghaiist didn't make it to the actual track meet, the main attraction of which was the 110m men's hurdles, where Liu Xiang narrowly beat out American Allen Johnson, clocking in at 13.07 to Johnson's 13.09. You can read about some of the other results here. We heard from someone who attended that the musical performers, which included Karen Mok, Lee Hom Wang, and Macy Gray, were lackluster. We didn't make it to the dinner afterwards either, but thanks to Aimee at Blue Frog we made it to the last stop of the night -- the post party, held at the Life Hub, a shopping/entertainment complex up on Gonghe Xin Lu, near Daning Lu in Zhabei District (yes, Zhabei District). Blue Frog catered the event (and is opening a new store in the area) where Liu Xiang was presented with an award and where the other athletes got a chance to drink, dance, and let off some steam. You can check out some of our pictures from the night above.

For example, you are at luna to chill, you send a short message“@luna”to belinker，belinker will tell your friends where you are，at the same time, if your friends’ friend happen to be nearby and checked in as well, you will know there location too. The casual meet up will never need to be planed again, you got another reason to meet friend in china.

How does that Arcade Fire song go? "I woke up with the power out, not really something to shout about." Well, that is our theme song for the day. The power is out on a large chunk of Nanjing Xi Lu -- no street lights during the middle of the day on one of the city's busiest streets ... beautiful -- and we live on Nanjing Xi Lu. So our power is out. A sign in the window of Zara says power should be back on by 2 pm. Yes, businesses on one of the main shopping streets had to close for this. Doesn't seem like an accident, either. Looks more like a planned work day. Couldn't they have chosen a better time of day (or night) to do this work? Anyway, with no internet at home, we headed to Element Fresh for what we thought was free WiFi. But there they told us to get the "free" WiFi we had to buy some kind of Shanghai Center card. So now we are at Blue Frog on Tongren, where the internet is indeed free ... but a little bit dicey. Things may be quiet here for a little while. Sorry.

Photos of the Happy Hour are up over at Flickr. If you have any photos from last night that you would like to share, please email them to photos@shanghaiist.com. Or, if you are a Flickr user, just tag them "shanghaiist" and the will appear on our photo page.

We checked out the third floor of Blue Frog on Tongren Lu last night -- pretty cool. That is where most of the Shanghaiist Happy Hour folks will be. We'll have our own bar up there, and there is a DJ booth where our DJ iPod jockey Jeff Jorve will spin his "tastefully eclectic mix of neo-soul, jazz, funk, and hip hop." We imagine the crowd will spill over to other floors of Blue Frog, which is fine, because everyone in the entire bar gets the drink specials. Not a bad deal.

Following up on our Rolling Stones story from yesterday, a commenter alerted us to the fact that the Rolling Stones Shanghai concert listing has been removed from the Emma Ticket website. That indeed appears to be true. We don't know why this has happened. But it seems you can still preorder tickets from elsewhere -- like Shanghai Spring Travel. This site confirms the show is "confirmed." But we still can't find any mention of a Shanghai gig on the band's official site.

After dozens of tryouts, we have finally selected the DJ for the Shanghaiist Happy Hour, coming up Friday, March 3 at Blue Frog on Tongren Lu. And the winner is ... "The Weasel" ... aka Shanghaiist's own Jeff Jorve (really, his iPod will be spinning all the tracks). Expect an eclectic mix -- and likely several songs with references to ultimate frisbee. To get a better feel for what Jeff-Jorve-the-DJ will be like, check out our top albums of 2005. Here is Jeff's top 20:

Just think, two weeks from now you will be getting ready for the Happy Hour people[1] are talking about all the way in Honolulu, Hawaii. A reminder of the details:

There are actually a number of decent options out there -- and that is something we never thought we would say when we first arrived here back in 2002. SH magazine dedicated a big chunk of their latest issue -- we're assuming they had this feature in the can and ran it when most of the staff was on vacation -- to the "Burger Battle," which starts with 16 of the city's top contenders and whittles them down to one champion. Rendezvous Cafe edged Luna in the final. Rendezvous is a decent -- and very safe -- choice, especially if you factor price into the equation. A burger at Rendezvous will cost you about half of many of the other contenders in the battle. And it is a no-frills burger, similar to what you could get at just about any roadside diner in the U.S., which usually does the trick just fine. But we bet in a blind taste test, when price is not an issue, Rendezvous may not make it out of the quarterfinals.

Even though we only sold two Shanghaiist T-shirts, most people who attended the first Shanghaiist Happy Hour last month at Cotton's -- thanks again, Cotton! -- thought it was a huge success (except maybe for the waitress who got hit in the head with a beer stein and never came back to work ... seriously, is she OK?).

Bob Boyce, restaurateur

Goodbye beautiful bunches of roses for 10 yuan. Goodbye piles of cheap Christmas decorations. Goodbye grumpy man who sold us a money tree. Goodbye woman who tied together beautiful corsages for our wedding, only to add the world's gaudiest bow at the bottom. Farewell. Adieu. You will be missed.

OK, we think we've finally recovered from Friday night. The Shanghaiist launch party at British Bulldog Pub was hot, in almost every definition of the word. We packed the place, forcing the bar to open its rarely used third level. Opening band Xingfu 13 rocked the house in a shortened set (they were delayed by a lack of a stool for their drummer, and couldn't stay longer because they were using a cable needed by the other bands back at Tang Hui -- how indie rock is that?). And the Shanghai Cowboys killed, and confused the handful of regular pub patrons in attendance. Based on some very unscientific drunken polling, everyone had a good time at the party (except for maybe the uncharacteristically frazzled event organizer -- but you'd be frazzled too if you had to deal with ... ah, we're not going to name names). The raffle -- though somewhat unorganized because bar management forced the Shanghaiist crew upstairs at the last minute -- made several prize winners very happy, some eerily so.

A final party plug before Shanghaiist lugs a shitload of T-shirts and raffle prizes over to the British Bulldog Pub. We had a couple last-minute additions to the raffle prize list (below), so be sure to check it out one more time. (Raffle tickets are 10 kuai, by the way, and five for 40 kuai. Entrance, of course, is free.) There are two threads about the party currently running on local message boards. One controversially suggests that "cute guys don't read blogs." Maybe that's true. But we at Shanghaiist read somewhere -- probably a blog -- that cute guys and hot girls tend to like live music and alcoholic beverages. And on those two criteria, we have you covered. As our friend Jake would say, this party is going to be "fresh."

Not sure if you heard or not, but we're having a party on Friday. And while people seem genuinely excited about the great live music, the cool prizes (see below) and the chance to meet Shamus, we all know that what will really pack 'em in the British Bulldog Pub are the Shanghaiist.com T-shirts! (Play along, folks.) Yep, Friday will be your first opportunity to purchase these custom-made, 100-percent-cotton wonders that have local fashionistas foaming at their pouty little mouths. You know why, right? They are ringer Ts! Shanghaiist T-shirts, which come in normal Western sizes, will sell for 60 RMB on Friday. That's less than a beer in some bars in Shanghai. Some lucky party-goers will win a shirt in our lucky draw. Here are some of the other prizes up for grabs: