Results tagged “shanghaicenter”

The Shanghai Center location of Gourmet Cafe opened up two months ago... and we were there to try it out then. Like the Element Fresh across the way, Gourmet Cafe features an extremely spacious outdoor dining area. You can choose between one of the wooden lunch bench tables or from the cushioned wicker lounge chairs.

• Developers hope to avoid 'skyscraper curse' [China Daily] "Hoping to avoid the "skyscraper curse," China's cities continue to reach for the sky. While most of the world's major construction projects have been put on hold, new skyscrapers are under construction in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and several smaller cities, defying the global economic slowdown. Developers believe China will prove to be an exception to the "skyscraper index" - popularly known as the "skyscraper curse" - proposed by financial analyst Andrew Lawrence. In 1999, Lawrence noted that major financial crises often follow the construction of record-breaking skyscrapers."
• Grape Wall Challenge: Top ten white wines under RMB100 [Grape Wall of China] "On March 13, a dozen expert and consumer judges met in Beijing for the Grape Wall Challenge and tasted 23 red wines that retail for less than RMB100 in China."
• Prepaid card woes multiply in Shanghai [China Daily] "The Shanghai Committee of Consumers' Rights and Interests Protection yesterday urged consumers opting for prepaid cards to be on guard, in view of the rise in related complaints in the city. The committee said it received more than 4,000 complaints in 2008, up 14 percent than in 2007. Most of these complaints have to do with beauty and hair salons or fitness clubs that often shut down without notifying their clients, said the commission. The credit remaining on the cards issued by them thus becomes invalid."

JZ Club has started hosting concerts at the Shanghai Center Theater (the one in the Portman Ritz-Carlton building) and the next one is tomorrow (Friday, that is). This show is featuring Bob James, the smooth jazz pianist who recently recorded his album "Angels of Shanghai" here in town with a number of local traditional intrumentalists. There's more information about the project on Bob James' website.

It was our good friend Anna Jacyszyn's penultimate night singing at the newly renovated Ritz-Carlton 2nd floor jazz bar, so we went by last night to hear her. Little had we realized, the band is once again playing in their old haunt on the second floor that has been undergoing renovation for at least a few months (6 or more it seems). The bar was originally scheduled to reopen much earlier than now, but the extension of renovation time seemed to coincide with reports of billowing black smoke from the 2nd floor windows of the hotel around the original finish date. So until just a week and a half ago, the band had been performing in the lobby lounge, which we understand was not as inspiring a performance venue for them.

We know that many of you have been affected by the tragic aftermath of this week's devastating earthquake in Wenchuan and are looking for ways to help the victims, so here is your chance to immediately get involved. We received word from ShanghaiExpat that the blood mobile will be out today in front of the Shanghai Exhibition Center opposite the Portman Hotel (a.k.a. the Shanghai Center). Those interested in donating blood have been instructed to make an appointment with Shanghai United Family Hospital by calling 5133-1968.

I got to the lobby with my camera but the staff made me delete the photos I got. I have some from the outside on my Flickr page tagged with Shanghaiist.

We told you about Shanghai's skyscraper envy. Now, the World Financial Center has barely been completed but our wonderful city has already announced plans for yet another skyscraper that will dwarf it. Two days ago, the all-authoritative Xinhua produly proclaimed that the new building, which is to be named Shanghai Center (we are unsure if this has any relation to the existing Shanghai Center) will be the world's tallest at 580 meters and 118 stories. According to them, that's 72 meters higher than the Taipei 101 Tower, currently the tallest building in Asia at 508 meters and "25 meters higher than the 555-meter-tall Burj Dubai skyscraper, which is still under construction".

Live Bar has always been open to different genres of music, and of late, seems to be the venue of choice for Chinese folk, metal and student bands. Friday night they will host one of China's most popular nu-metal bands, Twisted Machine. Any fan of metal should not miss this show, a great chance to see what Chinese metal has to offer. On the other side of town, up'n'coming indie rockers, Yuguo will play an...

We love WiFi — Shanghaiists are sociable folk, and this Shanghaiist in particular has fallen into an easy Sunday routine of catching up on news and email with a cappu and sandwich at local cafés. We like having a “third space” — a local hangout where we can meet up with friends, have the occasional coffee, and wile away the hours. We’ve already mentioned a few recent faves, and celebrate the expansion of free internet across our city as evidence of an emerging café culture beyond the ubiquitous Starbucks.

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.

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.

For a city notoriously lacking in live music, last night Shanghai rocked. While we (along with headliners Another Kind of Light) weren't able to make it to the opening of Yuyintang's Music Warehouse, we did manage to catch local rock-with-Chinese-characteristics band Three Yellow Chicken at Shuffle before heading to Tang Hui's pre-re-opening party, Electro Town.

Like many of you, Shanghaiist spent the Spring Festival holiday alone in our apartment, drinking to ease the unbearable pain of being enjoying a malt beverage. Or two. Having a preference for hopped-up beverages, Shanghaiist is pleased to report the following alternatives to the formaldehyde-enhanced, flavorless, pilsner-style local product:

Photo of the JW Marriott in Shanghai.

A Shanghai Daily story provides example number 1,029,349 why the Shanghai real estate market is so ridiculously inflated. With 47 square meter, semi-serviced studio apartments at Shanghai Centre going for $2,300 a month, it's no wonder Shanghai consistently manages to rank as one of the most expensive cities in the world ... all with the help of clueless foreign companies throwing piles of money at employee housing. According to the story:

We all know that California is famous for its pizza. Wait ... no it's not. Still, the California Pizza Kitchen, a mainstay in malls across America, is a welcome addition to the Shanghai restaurant scene, even though they tend to put some crazy shit on their "hearth-baked pizzas." CPK, as they refer to themselves, opened an 88-seat branch in Shanghai Center on Tuesday. It's right next door to the Haagen-Dazs.

With forecasts calling for temps reaching 38 degrees -- that's 101 for you Fahrenheit folks ... and damn hot for everyone else -- Shanghai dwellers will be looking for ways to keep cool this coming week. If you don't want to beat the heat in a large air-conditioned shopping mall, it's time to find a good place to swim. But what if your apartment doesn't have a swimming pool?