We figure that it was time to do a post about our favorite Shanghai restaurant of them all. Assuming that the overarching criteria for "favorite" is how often one goes to eat at a certain restaurant, then Coco 壱番屋 (more lovingly known amongst its many fans as Coco Curry) towers above all the other establishments on our list (and apparently, we're not the only ones). This Japanese import franchise (there are seven of them scattered......

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 few weeks ago it came to our attention that what appeared to be a large price tag-shaped sign was affixed to the front of a building under construction across the street from Zhongshan Park. The sign was under wraps, but the shape alone was enough to conjure up images of Best Buy and many high school hours spent searching in vain for movies and music that they don't keep in stock. Now despite......

This is just a rumor at this point. But it is a strong rumor. Not a weak rumor, or a flat out lie (like these). Basically, we think you can mark your calendars ... and use pen. Here are the details as we have heard them: March 2: Björk March 9: Harry Connick, Jr. March 22: Maroon 5 All shows will be at the Shanghai International Gymnastic Center, 777 Wuyi Lu near Zunyi Lu (not......

In the local press recently: By year's end, the Zhongshan Park Line 2/3/4 interchange station's single intra-station passageway between the Line 2 and Line 3/4 platforms will be joined by a new passageway added to relieve passenger congestion. Since the opening of the Line 2 extension, passenger traffic on Lines 2 and 3 has been grown markedly and the pedestrian traffic during rush hours is almost unbearable. The new passageway will be located on the......

At 7:00pm on a Sunday night all three floors of this sleek looking restaurant were packed. The modern industrial steel and granite motif works nicely in the space, and the bright lights and high ceilings mean smoke isn't a problem. The place was alive with conversation and wait staff hurriedly shuffled between tables bringing out food and drinks. If loud dining isn't your thing try to book a private room. The soup pot arrived......

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......

It is official...the golden week has finally hit Shanghai, and it is hitting us hard, with a multitude of music festivals. So for those of you who are taking the vacation serious and drinking so much you can't think straight, Shanghaiist is here to do the thinking for you. Feel free to print and paste the sample itinerary listed below to that one pair of underwear you plan on wearing for the entire week. After......

September is quickly sliding into history, which means for all us music fans that the orgy of music festivals Shanghai will experience in the first weeks of October is almost upon us. And of course Shanghaiist is here to bring you the latest in festival news..... The 1234 Beach Rock Festival - A scrappy fighter always getting knocked down but never going out for the count (did that make sense?). Postponed once again, it is......

Shanghai, typically a live music wasteland, is preparing for a gaggle (Shanghaiist has the hippest vocabulary) of music festivals, all scheduled for the normally dead October Golden weekend. Get ready for 4...yes, count'em....f-o-u-r....music festivals, with some pretty damn exciting bands. October 2nd-4th - 1234 Beach Rock Last year the Beach Rock festival was a blast for the few people who braved the weather and long 2 hour bus ride. This year the location has changed,......

This weekend is the next stop for Olympics hopefuls at the Gymnastics World Cup stop in Shanghai. The action begins tomorrow with the preliminary competition, which will determine the eight finalists that will compete on the four apparatuses for the women and six for the men. Since this is a World Cup event, there will be no all-around competition. Tomorrow's preliminary competition will be followed by the event finals on Saturday and Sunday. With the......

Although the Olympic Games are over a year away, a preview of what's to come next summer has arrived in Shanghai this week. Shanghai is the host for this year's Chinese National Gymnastics Championships, featuring some of China's best and brightest gymnasts. China's men's team AND women's team are the defending World Champions. The preliminary competitions finished up last weekend, with the team finals finishing today and tomorrow, and the individual competitions (all-around final and......

Though only in its infancy, newly launched online portal NeoCha has already got its eyes on the big time. The web project purports to bring together Chinese creative clans and facilitate the discovery of original music, art, events and goods. "Neocha was born out of the need to connect the growing communities of Chinese 'creatives' — artists, musicians, designers, etc. — who lack a centralized online platform," explains Sean Leow, one of four founders. "Neocha......

Officer dismissed for blogging "In China, there’s more precedent for blogging getting people in trouble with the police than there is for blogging in itself getting one getting fired. So what happens to cops who blog?" China bans firm from selling land on the moon "The company, Lunar Embassy to China, had sold a total of 49 acres (20 hectares) to 34 customers before authorities acted, Xinhua news agency said." Chinese Auditors Uncover 'Massive'......

Alert web surfers notice that the Shanghai Metro has redesigned their website. The English version is well done, and has some cool "inside" pictures of the subway car storage warehouse. Poster QQme reports columns going up near Pudong airport that suggest work has already begun on the eastern extension of Line 2. Other commenters wonder if this will make the Maglev even more of a white elephant. Poster aabcdefj must be on the inside because......

Browsing the Ditiezu.com (Subway-ers) BBS, we came across some interesting tidbits: Rumors say that new Siemens 8-car trains are about to hit the Shanghai metro system on Lines 1 and 2, possibly the 15th of this month or possibly next month. This should do a bit to relieve the currently over-congested 6-car trains. The LCD displays on station platforms are being updated to show the capacity of the next arriving train.Tongji University administrative vice-principal, and......

Lots of juicy news items in yesterday's Morning Post: The official government vacation schedule (that is growing less and less relevant as private enterprise expands) for the Western and Chinese New Year has been made public: WW = work days (on weekends) HH = official holiday VV = make-up vacation Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Dec 24 25 26 27 28 29 WW Jan WW HH VV VV 4 5 6 7 8......

Lucky for Shanghaiist, we won't be. But we certainly feel for people who will be stuck in the city for the holidays. So we've compiled an incomplete list of a few things to keep you occupied while your friends are back home drinking eggnog and getting wasted with family around the Christmas tree. The first time Shanghaiist went to the Yinqixing Indoor Skiing Resort was back in the SARS era (2003). We went back this......

Living for one and a half years in the Zhongshan Park area, we've observed constant and significant improvements. New shopping malls, many good fashion shops, and the Starbucks-factor went from zero to five. The latest novelty in the area is called Leisure Time Club. With a nice design on the outside, on the first floor the visitor is welcomed by a coffee shop and a bakery called Careme (which has not yet opened). The coffee......

The wearing of jammies in public: amongst people who have been in the city for less than 15 minutes, no issue has better served as a focal point for passion and vitriol. But what of the people who have been here longer? The so-called “lifers” who have lived in Shanghai for 16, 17 and, in some cases, 18 minutes? These have been eerily silent on the issue, avoiding it in public conversation, referring to the......

After Shanghaiist learned from Shanghaiist that street names changes are in the works, we thought it appropriate to post about something we recently found at a Chinese bookstore: a series of maps of old Shanghai. The bookstore (Ji Feng in the Shaanxi Lu subway station) had maps from 1927, 1932, 1948, and 1956. Each map is printed on old-fashioned, yellowish paper and comes in a little folder with the date printed on top. Although we......

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. The grand prize winner? Xujiahui, which the poll pegged as "publicly acknowledged to be Line 1's gathering place for beautiful women". According to analysis by voters, the nominees could generally be grouped into three categories.......

Shanghai malls haven't been doing too hot lately. The Cloud Nine Shopping Mall in Zhongshan Park can claim to be "the city's biggest shopping center in terms of floor space," but suffers from a severe lack of tenants and had to cede their home-grown basement grocery store to Carrefour in in June due to lackluster sales. In July, the Los Angles Times exposed Shanghai's luxury malls as "ghost malls", spearing Plaza 66 and others for......

Ever felt like you want to “escape from the modern city of Shanghai”? And drench yourself in “a captivating jungle experience unlike any other?” If your answer is “yes” and “yes”, then we have heard of just the spot for you. No, it’s not the wilds of Tanzania, nor the Amazon Rainforest -- we are, of course, talking about the newly opened Lucky Greens Miniature Golf Course, located on the sixth floor of the Cloud......

• .. .train tickets have changed every-so-slightly? In a move to make the process more friendly to visitors from abroad, train stations are now printing the departure and destination city names in English, just below the original Chinese. Since the departure time and car/seat numbers are written in the other international language (numbers), the only thing left to fully interpret a ticket is the bottom/middle/top character on sleeper train tickets. • ... the city government......

One Ms. Liu, a woman from Shenyang that holds a master's degree, has earned the dubious distinction of being the first jaywalker in Shanghai history to ever be arrested. According to this report, Liu was jaywalking with a friend around Huaihai Lu and Huangpi Lu, when they were stopped by a police officer. Liu refused to pay the fine and the situation became heated, in the ensuing moments Liu began pushing and shoving officer Lin......

Selected headlines from today's Metro Express, Shanghai's free weekday commuter paper: 胡锦涛主席启程出访五国Chairman Hu Jintao sets out to visit five countries, including 美利坚合众国 (the USA). Did you hear about the dinner at Bill Gates' house? 家乐福涉嫌卖假LV被索赔50万LV seeks RMB 500,000 in compensation from Shanghai Carrefour over suspected sale fake LV bags. 美国普利策新闻奖揭晓USA's Pulitzer Prizes announced. The "article" is simply a caption for a photo that won the Feature Photography prize, one of Todd Heisler's photographs of caskets......

When we read today that Shanghai's first organic foods store has "underperformed" our initial reaction was, Shanghai has an organic foods store? The answer is yes. OStore launched last summer -- about the same time Shanghaiist launched -- and we're not sure why we hadn't heard of it until now. Well, perhaps its location has something to do with it. OStore is on Zunyi Lu, which, being west of Zhongshan Park, is outside of Shanghaiist's......

Shanghaiist took a ride on the city’s brand new metro Line 4 the other day. Whilst it isn’t the major expansion to the current metro network we are all waiting for (especially seeing the entire line is yet to open), it might make getting across the city a little bit easier, depending on where you live. The line offers a new crossing between Puxi and Pudong, under the Huangpu River, between the Yangpu Bridge and......

Shanghai may have a lot of things we don't like -- traffic, pollution, tons and tons of people, the list goes on -- but there is one thing about the city Shanghaiist particularly likes: nothing is impossible here. Enter the bar Taste of Scandinavia, where everything is on the rocks -- even the customers. Billed as the first ice bar in China (and Asia, they claim ... but what about Russia?), it has definitely added......