dining – Jeff Lindsay's Site and the Shake Well Blog

Pasta Mania: Great and Affordable Italian Food in Shanghai

There are lots of Italian places in Shanghai, but many tend to be expensive, slow, and not all that good. For affordable Italian with excellent service, my new “go to” choice is Pasta Mania. Last night I took a group to Pasta Mania on the 6th floor of the Raffles Mall next to People’s Square (take Exit 15 at the subway station for People’s Square and you’ll be on the ground floor of the Raffles Mall). For 38 RMB, my Arrabiata Penne was really tasty. The 68 RMB meat lover’s pizza was good, though I’m not a meat lover. The Al Funghi pasta my wife had was rich and creamy. The calamari was tender and delicious. I also enjoyed the beverages, especially the passion fruit tea and the rose and strawberry tea. Even tried a lychee smoothie that was quite good. We had a lot of food and a lot of fun for an average of 110 RMB per person. We could have spent a lot less by skipping drinks, dessert (half off on cheesecake!), and appetizers. Not bad!

Our waiter spoke good English and his service was outstanding. He came over and checked on us several times–a rarity in China. Friendly, clean, efficient place. We’ll be back!

There are several other Pasta Mania sites in Shanghai. Super Brands Mall has one also.

By Jeffrey Lindsay|2016-10-24T05:57:53-07:00May 22nd, 2015|Categories: Food, Restaurants, Shanghai|Tags: dining, Italian, pasta, restaurants, reviews|Comments Off

Kakadu Australian Restaurant at Bridge 8 on Jiaguo Zhong Lu: Great Food

My wife and I took a friend from Namibia to my latest restaurant discovery, Kakadu, an Australian restaurant with interesting imported items, top-notch ingredients and great flavors. This place is hidden away in the Bridge 8 complex at 8 Jianguo Zhong Lu, just a few yards west of Chongqing Road (below the elevated ring road), on the north side of Jianguo Zhong Lu (middle Jianguo road). We were there on a Friday night. As we walked into the bar area, we saw that this is a popular place for foreigners. The bar was packed and there was a lot of good food being served there to the patrons. The restaurant area, though, still had seating for us though it was pretty busy also. We went there at 6:45 PM without reservations–dangerous, given its popularity, but we were lucky to get in and be seated quickly.

The menu has a good mix of meat dishes such as Australian steak, hamburgers including Austrialian beef, crododile, kangaraoo, and emu, salads, and so forth. I had the emu burger (98 RMB), while the others had spicy chicken salad (nicely barbecued chicken) and smoked salmon salad. My emu burger was delightful. Thick, flavorful with a touch of cumin, and pretty healthy. The burger was creative with a beetroot paste and interesting flavorings. Good bun also. I tasted the salads and like them as well. Also tried the pumpkin soup–perfect and creamy. The berry smoothie was also good, with a bit of ice cream in there, the way I like it.

My favorite item was the scallops that we ordered as an appetizer. Three succulent scallops came on a surprising bed of flavorful mashed green peas with a little maple syrup poured over it. Really a creative surprise and it was delicious and beautiful.

The experience was excellent, in spite of little slip in service that resulted in my burger coming about 30 minutes too late, having obviously sat on a counter cooling off the whole time. I pointed out that it was cold when it came and the management kindly and quickly brought me a new one that was fresh and sizzling hot. All is forgiven, and the experience overall was great.

Service gaps are a common problem in China or anywhere, probably: food you order might get overlooked or the order might never get placed, so it can sit or disappear. You need to check with the staff repeatedly sometimes to find out what’s happening with your food. Sigh. I checked with our waiter 3 times and he assured me it was coming, but had he checked more carefully, I think he would have found that it was there and waiting to be brought to the table. Or something.

For 3 of us, the bull was 395 RMB. Definitely plan to return.

By Jeffrey Lindsay|2016-10-24T05:57:55-07:00May 18th, 2014|Categories: China, Food, Restaurants, Shanghai|Tags: dining|Comments Off

Shanghai Dining: Recent Restaurant Experiences in Puxi

Puxi, the west side of Shangai, is my favorite place to dine (and to live). Incredible variety and typically more convenient than the new city of Pudong. Here are some recent restaurant recommendations and suggestions from dining experiences on the west side.

Top Chef Jacky: A leading Italian restaurant in Shanghai with the best pizza I’ve tasted here, plus the best mushroom soup. Their seafood risotto was excellent (though nothing will beat the seafood risotto I had in Florence, Italy earlier this year!). Top Chef is at 169 Mengzi Road, about 2 blocks south of LuJiaBang / XuJiaHui Road. I get there by taking line 9 to the MaDang Road Station, and then from Exit 3 (Mengzi Road) walking south 2 blocks. Mengzi Road begins where MaDang ends (a name change, it appears) at LuJiaBang Road. Service is excellent. Top Chef has opened an additional location just around the corner from the main site on Mengzi, so if they are full at the latter, they will walk you around the corner to their “secret” additional place. We’ve tried both and both are outstanding.

Sawadeeka Thai: A great new Thai place at the West Nanjing Road subway station. They also have a restaurant on the 4th floor of the SML Center, 618 XuJiaHui Road. This is on the walking street on the south side of East Nanjing Road, just across the road from Sephora’s. It’s at the very end of the building hosting three floors of restaurants, on the ground level. Very good curries. Not too busy yet but they will grow once the word gets out, I think. Just opened in April 2014. ElegantÂ setting, very pleasant, with reasonable prices.

Memory Restaurant:Â This is a popular chain. I’ve tried a couple of their locations and both were great and very inexpensive. MyÂ favorite place is on Shandong Road between East Nanjing Road and Fuzhou Road, a little south of Hankou Road. Shandong Road is a fun street loaded with little restaurants. One of the best is Memory Restaurant which opened there in March. One of my favorites for value and fun. The setting is similar to that of YunSe Restaurant on Fangxie Road (another of my favorites), with fun knick-knacks and lots of wood. It’s busy but efficient. Seems very clean. The menu has no pictures but is in both Chinese and English, with some fun Chinglish for some items. The paper menu is a great souvenir for visiting Westerners. I took a group of six there and ate a lot of food for 300 RMB total, and that included some fruit juice drinks, soups, and lots of main dishes. Great prices!

DaiFuKuya Japanese in the XinTianDi Style Mall, northwest end of the building, also on Ma Dang Road: Fast, fun Japanese place with a good mix of grilled and noodle dishes. We had some good Japanese dumplings and grilled items there. Fast and pleasant with good service. Less expensive than typical XinTianDi restaurants.

TMSK in XinTianDi: One of our favorites for the setting, food, and service. Only had a few minutes in our last visit but they were able to get food to us quickly and it was inspiring. A delicious variation on soup and salad, Asia style. Nice mix of Asian, Western, and fusion items on the menu.

By Jeffrey Lindsay|2014-04-24T08:22:50-07:00April 24th, 2014|Categories: Food, Restaurants, Shanghai|Tags: dining, food, Italian, restaurants, Thai|Comments Off

Origin Disappoints

Looking for a special place for dinner with healthy food, I took a friend and my wife to dinner at Origin in the Tianzifang area on Monday. Reviews from others have been good, but we were disappointed. Food was OK, but lacked the seasonings and attention needed to make it great. The vegetarian mustafa was good but was mostly mashed potato and lacked adequate eggplant and flavor. Was also not very warm. Our friend had a set meal for 248 RMB that was pretty ordinary looking. A little tuna salad, a piece of plain cod, and a dull looking side of grilled veggies, for which they carved an extra 15 RMB on the bill for grilling. Huh? The fruit juices were OK and the grilled baby tomatoes I ordered as a side dish were delicious, but overall it was one of the more expensive meals I’ve had in a while and we left hungry and unimpressed.

I also ordered a Mediterranean sandwich that should have been warm and flavorful but was cold, with hard, flat, dry chicken, and a mysterious absence of sauce or flavor. Disappointing.

Finally, when I asked for the “fapiao,” the official receipt, the waitress made some excuse and just gave me an unofficial bill, not the one that shows taxes have been paid. That means patrons can’t get reimbursed if it’s a business expense. Not good. Sigh.