Results tagged “theoffice”

If you love pizza, pasta, risotto and the rest, then no doubt you've come across some shocking examples of pseudo-Italian cuisine in Shanghai. However, the experience of one Shanghaiist reader at Babela's Kitchen, the newest establishment in the Food Park on the corner of Beijing Lu and Jiangning Lu, was truly scary. "I found a shard of glass as big as my little finger in my risotto, after I'd already put it in my mouth....

Back in the office and just can't concentrate on work? Here's a bunch of useless links we gathered that you can entertain yourself with (while pretending to look oh-so-busy)!

CARMEN RESTAURANT: Carmen Restaurant recently materialised on Xikang Lu, near the even newer Steak and Eggs. Passing by, what caught our eye was their blackboard promotion for all you can drink: 50RMB for chicks and 80RMB for blokes. Went inside and discovered the deal was just for draught beer (Carlsberg) and cocktails. OK, could be acceptable, but decided we'd better try their cocktails first before committing to an all-out drink fest. Winopete chose a G&T that was actually quite decent. A friend opted for vodka and tonic which was also quite satisfactory. What was not so good was being hurried into deciding did we want the all-u-can-drink deal or single drinks, and also being asked to pay before a sip of alcohol had passed our lips. Furthermore, this night a bunch of rowdy German card players to descended around us which led to the staff cranking up the music to a very conversation-unfriendly level. The timing of both these events led to us upping and leaving. The mouldy-looking furniture for a brand new venue is never going to earn brownie points with me, but a decent all-you-can-drink deal grabs our attention, especially given the dwindling reputation of Bon Bon. The bottom line is we'll try Carmen again.

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This is a little old, but we have a feeling many of you haven't seen it yet. From what we have read and seen (front row last month at Yunfeng Theater) of ?uestlove, drummer for The Roots, we always thought the man also known as Ahmir-Khalib Thompson would be a pretty cool guy to hang out with. And then someone told us to check out his blog on MySpace and now our new goal in life is get invited to one of ?uestlove's cookouts should we ever leave Shanghai and move back to rockin' Conshohocken. His blog is an entertaining and honest glimpse into the life of a celebrity, although it seems as though he's not really sure if he feels like a celebrity yet.

Well, opening today in France, at least. We first told you about Summer Palace, the controversial film from Shanghai-born director Lou Ye, last May. Since then, the director of Weekend Lover (1995), Suzhou River (2000) and Purple Butterfly (2003) has been banned for five years from making films in China for submitting Summer Palace to the Cannes Film Festival before it was approved by government censors. This was Lou Ye's second ban — Suzhou River got him two years.

We are sitting in City Diner, aka the office, making our usual rounds on Chinese blogs and news sites. On our table are two cards advertising a startling development in the diner's drinks list: Brooklyn East India Pale and Rogue Dead Guy Ale are now available for consumption at Rmb40 a bottle.

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We are writing this while choking on second-hand smoke at a Huaihai Lu cafe/eatery. Our choice, we know, but we had a meeting here and then decided to have lunch — and now we are having our neighbor's Marlboro Lights for dessert. Anyway, a nice little midday reminder of why we prefer to work at home. But is relief on the way? According to the latest Access Asia Weekly Update, maybe so. (Keep in mind that the author of the Access Asia newsletter is a fervent supporter of smoker rights, who refers to pansies like Shanghaiist as "killjoys who think they are going to live forever."):

Did you see this story from yesterday? Let the good times roll!

Yesterday's Metro Express reports on a vote by 2470 internet users of real-estate website Sofun.com to decide which Shanghai metro station has the most romantic potential, ie where you would be most likely to meet your one true commuting love.

Word on the street is Thailand had a little political shakedown this past week: Something about a Prime Minister being ousted and tanks rolling in the capital city. Kids these days … Not one to be out done, and perhaps to reclaim the spotlight, Shanghai (well, actually the order came from Beijing) stirred up a political tumult of its own, sans armored vehicles and AK-47s, but equally as CNN-worthy.

There is a new evil in Shanghai. We’re not sure when it arrived, but it’s a scourge. Inflamer of tempers. Destroyer of office equilibrium. Enemy of message taking.

Growing up, we dreamed of the day we could stroll bleary-eyed into the office after going back to the swanky hotel with an international pop starlet in one arm and a tequila bottle in the other -- except that last night, it was more of a service apartment and our starlet was actually Fan Yi Chen, with some Lawson's best baijiu … lovely guy, nonetheless, and apparently he's "kind of a big deal".

Qian Yun, walker

The movie opens July 28 (July 27 in Puerto Rico) but doesn't appear to have a China date, and we highly doubt it ever will (it opens in Japan on September 23). We don't usually like the big summer blockbusters, but we have to admit that we are kind of looking forward to this one. We used to watch Miami Vice religiously on TV -- box sets of which are available at many a friendly neighborhood DVD store in Shanghai. Back in the '80s, we owned the show's soundtrack and even remember admitting to liking Phil Collins and not getting laughed at. We were very happy to know that Michael Mann, the creator of the original Miami Vice would be responsible for the movie version and not someone whose name begins with a "bruck" and ends in a "heimer."

Someone just sent us this joke (in Chinese) about the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Shanghai. The rough translation is:

Maybe we'll try to hit the MIDI next year, although it doesn't seem like it will be the same. The movie's message is that the festival is getting more corporate -- selling out, as they say -- and that next year people selling homemade T-shirts, buttons and other souvenirs won't be welcome.

It seems old buildings aren't the only things getting knocked down in Shanghai these days -- new(ish) ones are getting the axe, as well:

Photo by 2 dogs 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.

The Virtual Shanghai project is backed by a team of experts from Institut d'Asie Orientale and the Institut des Sciences de l'Homme in Lyon, France, East China Normal University, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and University of California, Berkeley Center for Chinese Studies Library. Here's how they describe the project on the site:

There has been much ado in recent days about Shanghai’s “vertical traffic jams.” No, not the mad rush to get to the top floor of the Shanghai Post Museum (though we hear that place has been off the hook since our scoop). Rather, getting stuck in an elevator queue at the office.

Has life ever gotten so meaningless that you sometimes leave the office in the daytime to hang around on street corners, return to work hours later, and see if anyone has noticed or cared that you've been gone? Us too! On one of todays prolonged one-man-meetings, we saw Mr. Steven Spielberg near Shanghai Centre on Nanjing Xi Lu, with an eight person entourage. Walking no more than five feet past him, thinking "oh I am glad I forgot my camera today", the question arose whether it might be worth it to sing the Indiana Jones theme tune while leaping around, jumping onto benches and rolling on the ground, then smile at Stevie and wait for the film contract to present itself. The answer was no.

This Shanghaiist is a Shanghainese girl who doesn’t get near as much attention as the "whiteys" (or is it "whities"?) in this city do, however I/we feel your pain when you've got someone shouting “Laowai!!!” or staring at you as if you were an alien walking down the street.

Image from yeungstuff.com.

They pretty much roll like your average rap star. The Hurun Report surveyed 600 of Mainland China's wealthiest, those with at least RMB 10 million in the bank or under their mattresses. The results aren't really too surprising, but Shanghai's rich search the Internet with Google, while the rest of the country prefers Baidu. And Shanghai's wealthy like to travel to Europe, while Beijing's like to jet to the United States. We have reproduced the Shanghai survey findings below. For the other lists, follow these links: Nationwide, Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Northeast, Shandong, Sichuan/Chongqing. There is also a China Daily story about the list.

To truly appreciate the genius of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office, all you have to do is watch an episode of the American version of the show, which Shanghaiist did for likely the final time last night. No comparison. While the original The Office only blessed us with about a dozen episodes, there are still things to be thankful for: those episodes are worth watching over and over and over again, Gervais and Merchant's Extras is now available on DVD (has it hit Shanghai yet?) -- and Gervais and Merchant have decided to give podcasting a try. Starting today, Guardian Unlimited will host The Ricky Gervais Show. A new episode will be available here every Monday for the next 12 weeks. Here's a description:

Shanghai's building boom/bubble is not news for anyone who has read a newspaper or counted the contruction cranes protruding from the city's already formidable skyline over the past couple years. But this New York Times story puts the growth into some kind of perspective: