Shanghai’s Henderson Metropolitan Mall is at East Nanjing Road and Henan Road at the beginning of the Nanjing Pedestrian Street close to the Bund, right above the East Nanjing subway station where Line 10 and Line 2 intersect). It is a popular place to shop and eat, partly because it houses one of Shanghai’s 4 big Apple stores (the others being at Lujiazui, Xintiandi on Huaihai Road, and the IAPM Mall at South Shaanxi Road).
Henderson Metropolitan has two floors of food courts at its two lowest levels, B2 and B1. At the lowest level is a small Korean place I like, and next to it is Marissa Italian, which offers pretty inexpensive set meals at lunch (I think they are closed at dinner for a while–must be some trouble there, unfortunately). On the next level up, the main food court level, is a wide variety of places including a Burger King, Yummie House curry (Japanese style curries–pretty good set meals), a good Japanese/Korean place next to it, a popular hotpot place that lets you pick your own ingredients and then cooks them up a big bowl of broth, a Hong Kong dessert shop, a Thai place, a takoyaki shop selling fish and meat balls, and other places. I’ve enjoyed most of them. Nothing I’d say you have to avoid there.
Higher up in the mall, do avoid the Seafood Club restaurant. High prices and someone sullen service. Not satisfying food, though I gave it two tries. Last one was especially unpleasant.
For high end Chinese, try South Beauty on the tip floor. Great, but more expensive than most. I don’t think they have set meals, so it is best to have two or more people and share several dishes. Expect around 100 RMB per person or more.
My favorite place is the Japanese restaurant, Akasakatei, on the 3rd floor. It is a popular chain with excellent sushi, noodle dishes, bee beem bop (a Korean favorite), grilled fish, and fun set meals for lunch in the range of 45-65 RMB. I recently the beef and egg noodle dish set meal, which comes with a good salad, some pickled vegetables, and custard. The sushi set meal is also very delicious.
On the fourth floor is Fusion, a Singaporean/Malaysian place that has inexpensive set meals and great Singaporean ice kashi desserts.
Near South Beauty on the top floor is Classic Shanghai which has reasonable set meals and a variety of Shanghai favorites, including dumplings, hongshao pork, etc. Pretty good, but not my favorite.
The second floor has Ice Season, one of the best gelato chains in Shanghai. Their mint flavor is probably my favorite. Close to real Italian gelato, but nothing beats being in Italy!
