The first sign of trouble came when it took half an hour to get a waiter to take drink orders. To leave a party of twenty-one hanging dry for half an hour is a restaurateuring felony on the order of cockroach croutons. In fact, the actual wait was longer for some people who had arrived considerably before Mrs. Imagethief and I did. If nothing else, get the beer flowing. After some badgering we managed to get the waiter round to take orders. Apparently intimidated by the idea of keeping twenty-one drink orders straight (an admittedly tall task, but one I've seen managed elsewhere), he worked hard to encourage us to stay away from individual orders and simply take pitchers of beer. Most of us were willing to be persuaded on this front, despite some early enthusiasm for the heavily promoted craft beers served at the restaurant. more ›

Because Shanghaiist is too poor to afford satellite TV, he's often had to entertain himself with China's favourite (and only) English-language channel, especially when he's suffering from insomnia. Today's news coverage includes a story of what is touted as "Asia's first Dark Restaurant" which has just opened in Beijing (we briefly told you about this on Jan. 5). The video to the right is from a Chinese-language CCTV report. more ›