At least, according to Baskin Robbins. Their "Happy Expo" flavor is: "A field of chocolate and mint ice creams tossed with chocolate mint cookies and littered with red and yellow chocolate chunks." It's pretty obvious what the red and yellow stand for, but the Mint? Maybe it represents every Expo goer's wish for a cooler day. more ›

You might have missed it during your week-long gorge on Chinese food (like us), but Baskin-Robbins opened up shop in Shanghai over the Spring Festival holiday. According to their press release, the ice cream purveyor now has two locations in the city and plans to open a third one in February. While the press release frustratingly didn't tell us where the new shops were, we were able to find them after a bit of investigative snooping (okay, a lucky taxi ride just happened to drive us by one). more ›

It's easy to get excited about Dunkin' Donuts and the arrival of another Best Buy will at least offer us a more customer-friendly electronics shopping experience, but can Shanghai really handle the full frontal in-your-face Americana that is Dippin' Dots? For the uninitiated, Dippin Dots are little balls of liquid nitrogen-enhanced ice cream that look like smallpox, feel like Styrofoam, and taste like redneck. Fine, maybe they don't taste like a redneck (they taste like a cross between real ice cream and chalk), but the association is so deeply ingrained that you'll swear after one bite that 'Dueling Banjos' is playing faintly off in the distance. Available only at amusement parks, shopping malls, and NASCAR-esque sporting events, they exist somewhere in the seventh circle of the American nightmare. more ›

• Gothamist found that an explosive set off outside the Times Square army recruiting center may be similar to five past bombings in New York City.
• Seattlest worried when severed right feet and bottles of rat poison started washing up on local beaches.
• Shanghaiist was surprised by Bjork's rooting for Tibetan independence at her concert (see video), and the political fallout has only just begun.
• SFist debated the merits of new bronze plaques that will be placed in locations where San Francisco's homeless have died.
• DCist was obliged to respond to the worst Washington Post Outlook column ever published, in which conservative writer Charlotte Allen tried to make the case that women are dumb.
• LAist found Satan's ice cream truck trolling the streets, and they recorded the music.
• Some crafty Torontoist readers didn't like the dearth of ski hills in downtown Toronto, so they just built one of their own on their deck and (of course) recorded a video of them all taking turns on it.
• Bostonist knows the city's subway and bus system, the MBTA, has problems. So does this 17-year-old who submitted a report and told the MBTA brass how to fix it.
• Phillyist explored the possibility of an Ivy League prostitute, while their commenters debated the most ethical approach to proving or debunking the story.
• Londonist spent a little too much time looking at airbrushed operatic private parts, and enjoyed an enlightening comment from someone who was there. more ›

The last time an anchor from our favourite TV channel made it to the news, he created such a brouhaha that culminated in the eviction of one coffee company from the Forbidden City. In the news this time is New Zealand-born anchor Edwin Maher who for many years before arriving in China was a weatherman with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Los Angeles Times published a profile of Maher that started it all off. It... more ›

We finally made it out to Tian Jia, the superlative Japanese restaurant famous for serving only one kind of fish: toro, meat from the fatty belly of the bluefin tuna. Our first trip was right before we left for vacation three weeks ago, and our second was the first night we got back. Yes, we craved it the whole time we were gone. For those of you who were like us and never made a trip but heard all the accolades, now you can add Shanghaiist to the mix: this place is damn tasty. more ›

Crossing the Line - a documentary by VeryMuchSo Productions with Koryo Tours more ›

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... more ›

Which reminds us — we need to go to the gym. more ›

Great 80s party last night. Photos and stories coming soon. But first ... this is where we will be this afternoon: more ›

This may be old news (in fact, according to this link, it's almost three-year-old news) but we just learned over the weekend that McDonald's delivers in Shanghai, so we thought perhaps it would be new to some of you, too. We're not sure if every McDonald's in town delivers, but the one we were at in Yu Yuan (don't ask) does. The sign says they deliver between 9 am and 9 pm and require a minimum order of 50 kuai -- which means Shanghaiist won't be getting delivery anytime soon, since the only reason we ever go to McDonald's is for their ice cream. more ›

• Shanghai cuisine is set to be "improved", so that a menu can be created for Expo visitors, and they're hoping that "Shanghai snacks in the 2010 Expo will enjoy such worldwide fame as sushi, hotdog, and ice cream." The competition to create new snacks is open to the public, and they say that people can participate via Sohu.
• You can also contribute your thoughts about the layout and other details of the Expo by taking part in the poll on the Expo site, according to Shanghai Daily. However we had a quick look around and couldn't find much about it.
• People's Daily reported an article (from China Daily) several days ago, which bemoaned the sacrifice of old land to make way for futuristic buildings, complaining that vintage Shanghai homes were being destroyed. The article pleads for this not to be the case with the Expo site. Good luck.

Photo by idogu taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos page, use Flickr and tag your photos "shanghaiist". Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site. more ›

Xinmin Evening News tells us (article in Chinese) that although a bowl of wonton usually costs several yuan, Mr. Shao paid over 3000 -- in fact 3103.18 RMB. more ›

The “Five Friendlies” themselves have received a warm welcome (meaning that people spent far too much money on them when they first came out) but no one seems to like that they're called "The Five Friendlies". Although in Chinese their names spell out “Beijing Welcomes You,” (Bei bei+Jing jing+Huan huan+Ying ying+Ni ni=Beijing huan ying ni) nothing quite so “clever” is done with their English name, which to Shanghaiist bears too much connection to a place where we used to get ice cream shaped like a clown’s head when we were young. more ›

That's a phrase all men yearn to hear. Wish granted! ... thanks to some brilliant minds in -- you guessed it -- Guangdong province. According to a very vague Xinhua photo caption, a condom-in-a-can (or, if you prefer, it's sexed-up official name: "Nanometer-silver Cryptomorphic Condom") has been approved by Guangdong's "drug administration," and somehow that means it can now be sold throughout China. The man pictured is the proud owner of a spray condom in Hubei province's Yichang. more ›

China's internet thugs are are it again, this time attempting to block popular internet telephony services, namely Shanghaiist favorite Skype: more ›

If every single person in China’s population of over 1.3 billion people tossed 34 yuan in, let’s say, Shanghaiist's pocket, that would equal around 5.5 billion US dollars. That is the amount on money being wasted on disposable hotel supplies including toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, slippers and combs. China is becoming wary of this situation as well as its strain on the country’s finances. more ›

It's time for moon cakes again. The mid-autumn festival isn’t until September 18 -- and should thus be called the late-summer festival -- but this isn’t the first time people tried to get a head start on a holiday. more ›

In an announcement that should come as no surprise to anyone who has tasted the stuff, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has confirmed that Chinese-made ice cream is bad ... really bad ... and potentially harmful to your health. A muddled China Daily story about the report says that Chinese ice cream has an approval rating of 52.6 percent -- not very good, but still about 10 points better than President Bush. more ›

That's China Daily's headline for this story, which they copied and pasted from its original source, U.S. News & World Report. The story, originally titled "The Shanghai High Life," is annoying and vapid and tells the story of Lily Wang, a "typical Shanghai yuppie." Or perhaps the author was trying to show that the life of a typical Shanghai yuppie is annoying and vapid? more ›