Back (in the very recent past), when it was named Daojianghu, this little Japanese izakaya restaurant quickly became one of my favorite spots on Sinan Lu. It boasted a snazzy interior, a decently priced menu and 20rmb Asahi drafts. It's now been renamed Shoga (perhaps it thought its previous moniker was too confusing), but it retains all those things that made it great, only... the drafts have become even cheaper! more ›

It may be so, at least between 2pm to 8pm on weekdays and 4pm to 8pm on weekends. Located on Hongmei Lu's Laowai Street, Shanghai Brewery has an almost mindbogglingly well-priced happy hour price - their homemade beers are just 28rmb for a big glass (and 20rmb for a smaller one). more ›

Suffering from Superbowl withdrawals? Yeah, thought so, but you can get back some of that American football fever at the Boxing Cat Brewery when Ed Wang, the first fully ethnic Chinese NFL player hosts happy hour drinks. more ›

It's that time of month again! We're breaking out the giant scrabble board and giving you great drink specials at Cotton's on Xinhua, so come enjoy this undoubtedly beautiful night with some friends and fancy wordplay. more ›

From 6pm to 10pm, we'll be hoisting up our giant scrabble board and inviting everyone to engage in cunning word play. more ›

From 6pm to 10pm, we'll be hoisting up our giant scrabble board and inviting everyone to engage in cunning word play. Rules rehash:
• Each Happy Hour drink gets you five tiles. You can wait until you've got a couple orders under your belt - heck, we're not putting a limit on how many tiles you can come up to the board with - but just know that someone might take that triple word score from you if you wait too long.
• We'll be using the SOWPODS dictionary. If you don't know what that means, don't worry too much about it.
• You can come up to the board as many times as you like between 6pm and 10pm. But you can't make words consecutively, you'll have to wait until at least one other person has tried first.

Hey guys! Looking for something to do? Come tonight to Cotton's Xinhua to play scrabble with us! The weather may be frightful, but inside Cotton's it's delightful! Plus, we'll be playing a newly compiled setlist of the best indie rock songs from 2010 (in case you wanted to check out The National or Titus Andronicus' new albums). more ›

It was a rainy night, unfortunately, but that didn't stop us Shanghaiist Scrabble fans from enjoying a cool game and a warm drink anyway. While the competition was lower than other nights, our winner didn't need the help anyway. After all, Sandy's won before... at our first scrabble night in fact! That makes her the only team/person to win twice! more ›

It's the last Tuesday of the month, and that means it's time for Shanghaiist Scrabble! Come out to Cotton's on Xinhua Lu tonight to partake in a couple of after work drinks and word smithery! The day has been warm, so the night should be wonderful. more ›

Looking for something to do this week? Shanghaiist has got you covered, from poker and arm wrestling tournaments to a night dedicated to The Dude. Of course, we hope to see you show off your Scrabble skills at the Shanghaiist Happy Hour on Tuesday! more ›

We know where you're gonna be tonight. Or at least, we know where we hope you're going to be tonight: at Shanghaiist Scrabble having a drink and making ten dollar words on our shiny Shanghaiist-specific scrabble board! Yes, after a month of waiting, Scrabble night is here again, so come on over to Cotton's and prove yourself the cunningest linguist in the city. more ›

Hey y'all, another month has passed and it's almost time for the next Shanghaiist Scrabble Happy Hour! Same rules, same time, same deal, same everything, but in case you needed a rehash, here's how we play the game: more ›

Oops, so we had meant to post the winners of our Shanghaiist Scrabble happy hour earlier last week... but, well, holidays called. It's a shame, because this last time was a doozy. Not only did we manage to use up all our Shanghaiist Scrabble tiles before the end of the night, but our winners got the highest score ever reached so far: 372. None of their words were particularly large scorers; nope, these guys won through sheer persistence, coming up to our Scrabble board 14 times in the two-and-a-half hours they were there. more ›

Can you believe we've had three of these already? We barely can. Nor can we wrap our minds around the fact that this will be the last Shanghaiist Scrabble of the year... nay, the decade! So, if you happen to be around Shanghai tonight, come out and join us for a fun wintry Scrabble match. We've got warm drinks, good music, a sweet fireplace, and - of course - a way to exercise that big, big brain of yours one last time before you lose your mind for the end of 2009. more ›

It's that time of the month again. No, we're not talking about that time of the month: it's time for Shanghaiist Scrabble! Luckily, the last Tuesday of this month falls on the 29th during the anticipatory lull between Christmas and New Year's: it's the perfect time to reminisce on all the fun we've had in the past year, and what better place to do that than in front of Cotton's cozy fireplace? Come down and share a few drinks with us as we remember all the crazy parties, ridiculous stories, and good times we've had in 2009. Plus, if you're good enough at Scrabble, you just might win 250 RMB worth of Cotton's drinks! more ›

Last night's Shanghaiist Scrabble was full of warmhearted, frenetic spelling: players scrambled to push their way to the board to capture coveted double letter and triple word scores as others sat with old friends and new Scrabblemates, drinking and trying to think of words that could possibly combine two F's and a Q. In the end, Liz managed to blow away the competition with "PSEUDONYM," catching the elusive and coveted Quadruple Word Score, a Shanghaiist Scrabble exclusive, for a whopping 76 points. Congrats to Liz on winning a 250 RMB gift certificate to Cotton's, which, of course, you can use at the next Shanghaiist Scrabble night! more ›

Okay, let's get a few things straight. We love happy hours: you love happy hours. We love Cotton's: you love Cotton's. We love Scrabble: you love Scrabble, but probably not as much as we do. If we're off on any of that, you can take it up with us tonight as we spend the evening combining all three at our very own Shanghaiist Scrabble @ Cotton's! more ›

Hey folks, remember our last Shanghaiist Scrabble night? You can win 250RMB of Cotton's vouchers and the title of Shanghaiist Scrabble champion if you come to the next one we're hosting: Tuesday, November 24th. Pit your vocab and scrabble strategy against the drinks you'll be getting in order to compete. It'll be a cold night, but with the copious amounts of alcohol and Cotton's warm fireplace (with real fire!), you'll be sure to feel as cozy as possible on a Tuesday night. more ›

Hats off to Sandy from Sarnia for rocking the board all night despite your surprisingly limited amount of drinks. Your winning word "FOXIER" managed to garner you 48 points and delivered you to victory. You win a 250RMB Cotton's voucher to be used (hopefully!) at the next Shanghaiist Scrabble happy hour night. more ›

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Does the fact that China doesn't have scrabble get your goat? Does the fact that Craig Beevers won the UK's national Scrabble championship AGAIN and you know you could take him down bother you? Have you ever wanted to battle with the Shanghaiist editors in a match of lexicons? more ›

We've got a whole new bag of tricks to spice up our semi-monthly Shanghaiist Happy Hour at Cotton's. Well, technically, it's a bag of tiles- Scrabble tiles. After searching in vain for a game of Scrabble and only finding Maonopoly sets, we decided that we would maverick it and just make our own. And since we all know how witty and clever Shanghaiist readers are, we'd like to cordially invite you to join us next Tuesday, October 27 for the first monthly Shanghaiist Scrabble night! more ›

With a mere forty-eight hours before the National Day celebration, we figured we'd throw a little surprise party of our own. Come down to Cotton's tonight and celebrate Shanghaiist's "we-hope-we-also-make-it-to-sixty" happy hour party! We're going to party like it's 1949, kick some traditional Chinese jams, and dance the night away with National Day drinking fervor. And like always, two for one drinks until ten! more ›

Come on out and have a drink with us! more ›

Yes, there have been a couple hiccups with our original plans to have semi-monthly Shanghaiist Happy Hours, but with the weather cooling off into nice, comfortable weeknights, we're ready to get back on schedule. more ›

And if you happen to have any John Hughes films you'd like to see, bring them on over - lest we have to play The Breakfast Club twice (Shanghai DVD stores had a surprising dearth of good 80s flicks this week). more ›

We're not sure what John Hughes meant to the rest of the world, but for American teens, he encapsulated every struggle and every triumph we ever had or wished to have. We wanted to go on Ferris Bueller's Day Off, we wanted our crushes to blow out our Sixteen Candles with us, we were desperate to experience some Weird Science (or, for the 90s kids, be left Home Alone). more ›

In case you're looking for a chill place to hang out tonight and celebrate French National Day, come on over and hang out with us at the Shanghaiist Happy Hour at Cotton's on 294 Xinhua Lu. more ›

If you're a Francophile looking for something a little more special (but maybe a little more low key than a six hour ladies' night, though if that's your thing then chacun ses goûts) to do on Bastille Day, come and hang with us at Cotton's on Xinhua Lu. more ›

Yep, it's tonight. Come on over to Cotton's on Xinhua Lu for the Shanghaiist Happy Hour, which will feature yet another live performance from Philadelphia based musician Brian Seymour (MySpace). Want to read up on him? See more on our Seymour interview. more ›