If you look at reviews of Bund restaurants, every second or third critique will complain that the food is overpriced. "Expecting more" or "not worth the money" crop up more times than we care to count. And we completely relate--not everybody has a corporate account to rely on at mealtimes and a perfectly good tasting meal can be tainted by the price tag. So you can imagine what an injection of fresh air it was when Shook! opened up on the 5/F of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel and introduced their lunch set at the low price of 88RMB. more ›

A great timelapse (two actually) of Lujiazui's now famous Blade Runner-esque skyline greeting the night sky. By Atardecer en Shanghai. more ›

Brace yourself Shanghai; the woman often described as ‘fierce’ (or downright violent... you decide) is on her way here. Yes, everyones favourite fiery tempered, community service-attending supermodel Naomi Campbell is on her way to the Bund to grace an ‘exclusive’ party in her honor at Fashion House ‘Dolce & Gabanna’. more ›

A stone’s throw away from the Bund is the Shiliupu docks. Recently rebuilt, for the hefty sum of three billion RMB, the dock saw its official opening on Saturday. Unfortunately, it seems that the only thing the dock is open for is critique. more ›

As we reported, the Peace Hotel reopens to the public today. Malcolm Moore of the Telegraph got a first look at the renovated 81-year-old landmark. more ›

Unlicensed pedicabs, which for the longest time have been gone from our city, have been making quite a comeback recently. To combat this, police have issued a pedicab crackdown, which cumulated in them seizing 60 of these electric wagons in just one short hour! more ›

After slates of unexplained delays, it seems that the famous Peace Hotel on the Bund (now called the Fairmont Peace Hotel) is finally set to reopen... tomorrow! more ›

Chinese news portal Jing Daily has compiled a list ranking China's 10 Most Luxurious Cities. The criteria? Living standards of the city's elite, "internationalness", designer shopping, and infrastructure. more ›

• We love Western publication tourist guides - and here's one for the Bund (set to reopen March 28!). Things you should do on our beloved Waitan include... going to Three on the Bund, going to M on the Bund and checking out the Peace Hotel. Sounds expensive! [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Pudong is cracking down on illegal "Expo families" i.e. people that are claiming to be home-stay host families in order to lure unsuspecting Expo tourists into their hovels. They face maximum detentions of 15 days and cash penalties up to 1,000RMB. [Shanghai Daily]
• Apparently China has a big problem with drug resistant tuberculosis, something that at least Shanghai is trying to solve. Now people with that form here, as well as those who have not yet recovered from the disease, will be able to take advantage of free treatments. [China Daily]

Public voting has begun for the 2010 Miele Guide, which is basically Zagats, but for Asia. So if you're a dedicated foodie with a lot of opinions and a wallet that can afford to back them up, then you might as well register with them and let your will be known. Last year's guide included three restaurants from Shanghai in the Top 5, all from the Bund. Maybe this time, we'll get a slightly more district-diverse selection to represent our fair city. more ›

Whether you were a Westerner living in the International Settlement or the French Concession or a well-heeled local, if you went out for a big Chinese dinner in the 1930's, you probably headed for Sun Ya. Sun Ya, now known as Xinya, is a mammoth four-floor establishment which served the best in Cantonese cuisine. Although the quality of the food has suffered in the intervening years, Xinya remains a popular establishment for large gatherings, especially wedding parties. The seafood "hot pot" meals and the "dim sum" are still worth a visit, as is the fact that Sun Ya/Xinya is somewhat of a culinary shrine. Because Shanghai had for so long been the primary point of contact with China for resident and visiting Westerners, and because Sun Ya was the restaurant they were most likely to know, it played a large part in establishing expectations for Cantonese food throughout the Western world. more ›

After what seems like years (two to be exact) of walking through Zhongshan Dongyi Lu and meeting nothing but rubble, it seems the Bund is finally ready to show us the results of its extensive cosmetic surgery. Officials have announced that the Bund will be open to the public on March 28 and will feature a brand-new riverside promenade, four theme squares connected by walkways, and an underground passageway to keep unsightly vehicles away from our sensitive eyes. Lovely! In related news, 95% of reconstruction projects in the city should be finished by April 15, giving Shanghai two weeks to enjoy everything before the Expo floodgates open. more ›

Matt Mayer is a British web and mobile developer for ReignDesign who has lived in Shanghai for 4 years. He is the man behind ExploreShanghai, the No. 1 online Shanghai metro map which is also now available as an iPhone app. more ›

The WGC-HSBC Champions tournament is starting up tomorrow, and today, the big players were on the China publicity warpath by doing their mandatory "Look at us! We're taking part in Chinese culture!" bit. The part of Shanghaiist that's actually interested in this sport says this happens every time pro-golfers come into town: three years ago there was a ping pong match. more ›

• According to this website, Shanghai's planning on building a shanzhai version of the U.S. Pentagon before the World Expo. Like most weirdly shaped complexes in China, It'll be a shopping mall. [非常日報]
• People's Daily looks at the "Bund Origin" program and reflects on the Huangpu area's last 60 years. [People's Daily Online]
• Adam Minter interviews a migrant worker who's working to clean up Shanghai all spiffy like by refreshing the paint on windows. [Shanghai Scrap]

According to a tipster, something has caught fire on the Bund! Details aren't especially clear, but it looks like the fire is coming from the dock right across from the old Bank of China building on Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu (中山东一路). The tipster has now sent in some photos, snapped with his iPhone. Seems that the stuff that caught fire is scaffolding and support beams for the Bund's underground traffic tunnel (built to reroute ugly traffic away from the main thoroughfare). more ›

Guess what? We're "hipper than Hong Kong and more alluring than Beijing," according to the Associated Press. The words appeared in an AP article on Shanghai pursuing luxury travelers in a strong effort to restore a "reputation for opulence and elegance that once made it the Paris of the Orient." Funnily enough, the article seemed to insinuate that this is something new for our city - a transformation we're rushing to finish in time for the Expo rather than, say, something we've been striving for since the late 1990s. Before this metamorphosing push, we were a "gritty industrial hub of crammed tenements." Huh. We guess the Jinmao and Xintiandi and all the Bund buildings that aren't the Peace Hotel can be considered really, really ahead of their time then? more ›

The Peace Hotel, which has been under renovation since 2007, is on the road to being reopened in March 2010. According to Shanghai Daily, it'll be refashioned as the Fairmont Peace Hotel and will retain its original art deco style. more ›

Sure, we already gave it a first visit last year, but this is a museum that virtually commands us to try it again. more ›

Today we watched as the first half of the Waibaidu Bridge （外白渡桥）, or Garden Bridge, was returned to its original position on the north part of The Bund. more ›

Dan Chung of The Guardian, who brought us that beautiful reel of the Longchang Apartments, has a new video documenting visitors on the banks of the Huangpu River. more ›

Luckily for us here in Shanghai, U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration happens at around the midnight hour. That means, basically, that it's completely acceptable to drink to this historical event more ›

Christopher St. Cavish reports that superstar chef Jereme Leung is out at Whampoa Club, the restaurant he helped found. Cavish also says David Laris is now acting as a consultant to the restaurant that bears his name. Meanwhile — and this should be classified as gossip for now — a source on the Bund recently told us that days could be numbered for several of the tenants of the former Union Building. Stay tuned. more ›

These three fantastic jazz vocalists will do a unique performance this Saturday night at a venue we haven't been to yet, called Lounge 18 (18 on the bund, 4F, 18 Zhongshan Dong Lu, near Nanjing Lu). Coco says it's a fantastic space, which means it should be perfect for the magical evening the group has planned for Saturday. Joining the three singers will be Tinho Pereira, the extraordinary Brazilian bass player who joined Coco and Heidi for their recent show at the Oriental Arts Center, as well as Willow Neilson, an Australian saxophonist who is not playing sax at this show but instead playing Mbira, which is the Zimbabwean thumb piano. It's quite a unique set of sounds to mix together, and a fantastic set of musicians, so expect an amazing night. more ›

Friday night was the first of five nights of racy burlesque performances by the Atomic Bombshells at the Glamour Bar. It was the perfect cure for those "boring Olympic opening ceremony blues", at least until China's own Olympic team paraded onto the screen--at which point nothing could draw the crowd's attention away from the big screen. Luckily that won't be an issue for the remaining 4 nights of shows. more ›

Just because we’re on the other side of the world from Ireland doesn’t mean that there won’t be plenty going on for St Paddy’s Day over here in Shanghai. This year, March 17th — the date when all of us are a little bit Irish — inconveniently falls on a Monday but fear not, the Emerald Isle’s Shanghai contingent are celebrating early with a bunch of events this weekend. more ›

The dire restaurant choices at Pudong Airport will get a boost when Terminal 2 opens on March 26. more ›

ODDS AND ENDS:
more ›

Recently we stumbled across an interesting website that might have finally answered the age-old question: 'What should I do with my visiting friends and family while I'm at work?' ChinaTrackers.com is a company offering MP3-guided tours of Shanghai and we would assume, from the animation on their homepage, other cities will be soon to follow. The Shanghai destinations include plenty of the standard tourist fare (Old Town, People's Square, The Bund), but also has a couple of off-the-beaten-path stops (two Hongkou tours) as well. more ›

Shanghaiist reader Christof Schmeisser was partying with his friends at Attica over the weekend and was surprised to meet Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson and his crew. They are apparently in town as part of a business delegation on UK prime minister Gordon Brown's Shanghai detour. His impression of the billionaire maverick was "very open minded and not snobbish at all". Schmeisser added:

I said I like the idea of using bio diesel on planes (he finances some project) and asked him how things are going. He showed me his fingers crossed ;-)