Results tagged “citysupermarket”

Most of the time when we need liquor we head to Carrefour, City Supermarket, or any of those types of places; but we are now happy to report that we found one more option: 9519, a Chinese somewhat upscale liquor store that's stocked with baijiu, huangjiu, vodka, gin, vermouth, red and white wines, beers, and even some fancy old-fashioned wine sets (ceramic, similar to a sake/wine set). The name is meant to sound like 酒,我要酒...

We remember the joy we felt (back in 2003) when we first found Chinese Gatorade, meaning real Gatorade in Chinese packaging, meaning not the expensive imported stuff at City Supermarket. We have since weened ourselves from our Gatorade addiction, but we still understand Shanghai blogger John Biesnecker's excitement upon discovering that Doritos are now being manufactured for the Chinese market. We quote:

Shanghaiist prefers sugar-free bevarages. We're not getting any younger. And we'd prefer our waistline not get any bigger. (And if it does, we'd prefer it be the result of consuming good beer.) We've been known to have friends who happen to be flight attendants bring us packs of Crystal Light from back home so we can satisfy our cravings for sweetish beverages that aren't full of sugar. In China, there are few sugar-free soft drink options (unless you go to City Supermarket). You've got Diet Coke ... and that's about it, unless you count water and tea. So, we were pretty excited to find that Guangdong-based drink company Mizone (脉动) has recently launched a sugar-free flavor called 冰莓 (bing mei or maybe "ice berry"). It's not bad (and cheap, maybe 3 kuai) and kind of similar to Gatorade's sugar-free Propel Fitness Water. But we hope they launch some flavors other than 冰莓. Look for the drink in most convenience stores and supermarkets.

More than you ever wanted to know about buying fruit from street vendors

Anyway, we thought some of you might want to know that we recently found relatively cheap legitimate breakfast cereal at the supermarket underneath the Westgate Mall (Mei Long Zhen, Nanjing Xi Lu and Jiangning Lu) -- and it's not the same Chinese Trix and Cheerios that have been available for 12.9 kuai per 150 gram box for a while now.

We can think of many locations in Shanghai, and certainly China at large, where hand sanitizer dispensers would be quite useful. Plaza 66, where we spotted this one this morning, is not one of them. We've never seen a hand sanitizer dispenser like this before ... anywhere. People tell us that some hospitals in the US have them now, and come to think of it, Plaza 66 does give off a similarly sterile vibe. It is nice to know, however, we can finally browse our Louis Vuitton and Bvlgari bacteria free. The dispensers would probably serve more purpose outside Plaza 66 -- we saw a guy let loose an impressive snot rocket near Cartier yesterday. It's scenes like that that make us wary of shaking hands.

A brief note regarding the City Diner we told you about not too long ago: We have learned that it is supposed to open this week, either today or Friday, depending on who you believe. We assume the source that said today is reliable, because he was seated in one of the City Diner's booths working on a computer. We'll explain: We ate at Eat, Drink, Man, Woman on Saturday (delicious, as always) and afterwards decided to snoop around upstairs to see what the diner was looking like. Honestly, it looked a lot like Eat, Drink, Man, Woman -- the same beige pseudo-suede upholstery. We were kind of hoping for some red vinyl and at least one jukebox. The only things that really screamed "diner" were the retro Coca-Cola fridge, the hanging lights and the neon sign outside. So, we figured they still had some redesigning to do. But the guy with the computer sitting in the booth (who we didn't notice at first -- good thing we didn't steal that wine) said it was scheduled to open on Monday. And who would doubt a guy sitting in a booth working on a computer? Well, we would. We just called iiiit!, another one of Eduardo Vargas's establishments, and they said the City Diner will open Friday, but that it didn't have a phone number yet. If any of you decide to go with the computer guy's word, let us know what you find.

Planning a party can drive a man to drink. Thankfully for Shanghaiist, we're now just a short walk from good, cold beer -- KABB recently started carrying Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Now, there are plenty of places in Shanghai to get a decent brew -- if you are willing to pay for it -- but there is a definite dearth of hoppy beers in our city. And Shanghaiist likes a hoppy beer. A nice Sierra Nevada Pale Ale makes us sooooo happy. Unfortunately, we haven't seen any of those in Shanghai. There are two Australian beers -- Coopers Sparkling Ale and Coopers Original Pale Ale -- that you can find at a handful of local bars and restaurants. In fact, the City Mart (kind of a fake-and-not-really-very-good City Supermarket in the basement of the Pacific Department Store on Huaihai Zhong Lu) used to carry a nice selection of Coopers beers, and Australian wines, at very reasonable prices. We'd buy a six-pack of pale ales for 9 kuai a bottle. Pretty damn good (even if the beer isn't quite as hoppy as we would like). And then one day we walked in and all the Australian stuff was gone ... and replaced by Heineken. Yuck. Shanghaiist was very sad.