Coconut is definitely a date type of dinner place. Located on Fumin Rd near Yan'An Expressway, it has a big yard with a water pond (you walk over it as you enter), nice shady trees, and great lighting over intimate tables. The good looking house itself has 2-story and is decorated with dark wood and south east Asia artworks.
The food is standard fare Thai, and you can pretty find all the familar dishes on the menu. On average, the food tastes pretty good, but nothing stands out. I like the shrimp cakes and pineapple fried rice. The spicy dishes can be very spicy with the fresh chili pepper seeds mixed in. The price is mid-upper range but good value for the ambience.
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Tags: outdoor seating,
Thai
Located on the quiet Fuxing Rd across from Cafe Boona II, Club JZ is one of the few more serious jazz clubs around Shanghai. There's a band playing every night of week; some are based in Shanghai, and some are visiting musicians and bands. The venue has a cozy stage w/a mezzanine level of seating. The bands play several sets between 10pm-2am. They also have a jazz school nearby, where classes and private lessons are taught to beginners and experienced musicians alike.
See their website for upcoming performances: http://www.jzclub.cn/index.asp
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The historic French Concession is roughly a 10 sq km area consisted of the present-day Luwan, Xuhui Districts, along with a smaller portion of JingAn and Changning Districts. From the mid-1800's to 1930's, the area saw an influx of people from all over the world and all walks of life: the French, and later on the White Russian refugees, entrepreneurial Jews, Chinese gangsters, and communist revolutionaries. The area is best explored on foot so you can take a closer look at the old buildings scattered throughout.
Here are some of my favorite cafes and restaurants in the west part of the French Concession around my apartment.
International ATM (most malls have them)
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This chain is supposedly created by the original owner of YongHe Dou Jiang (永和豆浆), a popular Chinese fastfood chain, made famous by the soy milk drink 'dou jiang' (豆浆). You can also get other standard Chinese breakfast items like sticky rice ball with stuffing 'zi fan tuan' (粢饭团), pan-fried raddish cake 'luo bo gao' (罗卜糕), Chiness egg omelette 'dan bing' (蛋饼), as well as the popular 'xiaolongbao' (小笼包). They also serve soup noodles and various rice plates. The price is slight higher than what you would see by street vendors, but it's definitely much cleaner. They can also deliver for free for orders over $25RMB.
NOTE: This location has closed down as of Feb. 2008, to my chagrin. Hopefully some good restaurants will move in soon...
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Located a few doors down from People 7 and Nepali Kitchen, the resturant is hidden in a narrow alleyway with little lights on the ground. Inside, it's a huge, industrial feeling loft space. The sushi bar/open kitchen is on the first floor, while tables are sparsely placed on the first and 2nd floor. The dishes needless to say are on the pricey side. But with the kind of cool food presentation and atmosphere in there, you wouldn't mind. Oh, like in People 7, don't forget to check out the bathrooms.
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Tucked away on Julu Rd near Fumin Rd on the 2nd floor, it's very hard to notice People 7 unless you really look for it. To get in the door, you need to figure out the passcode for it. The 2nd floor is the bar/lounge area, and upstairs is the restaurant. The decor is industrial 'shi-shi' modern Chinese. It has a sister location People 6 (Yueyang Rd and Yongjia Rd) and is by the same owner as Shintori, a very cool Japanese restaurant. The food is delicate and comes in small portion so go there if you're not starving. Don't forget to check out the bathrooms (if you can figure out how to get in there) ;-p
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Some cab driver told me BaoLuo was a little restaurant started by this bicycle shop owner a few decades ago and now it's still has the same small house but has taken over a much bigger building behind (you can only see that when you go into the backside). This is where the old Shanghainese families would congregate starting at 5pm for dinner. You can only reserve seats for 6pm or earlier seating; otherwise, you'll have to wait out front just like 30 other people.
The dishes are classic Shanghainese "ben-bang", which means the flavoring is sweet with dark soysauce coloring. You should try their crystal shrimp w/ vinegar, fried bao (sheng jian bao), the "swiss" steak, and also the various cold appetizers like lotus root stuffed w/ sticky rice, string beans w/ scalion. They also have some seasonal and new dishes they invent. The servings are pretty big so it's better to go with a group of 4 or more.
The quality has gone down a bit since I first went there but it's still a popular local establishment to go experience. By the way, if you don't need "fa piao", you can ask them to give you discount on the bill amount.
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Ok, if you love tonkatsu (Japanese style battered pork chop over rice), then you should try to find this place. My friend's hubby is Japanese so that's how we know the place. It's on the stretch of JiaoZhou Rd between YuYuan Rd and Beijing Rd. It's got no Chinese or English sign and it's puny shop with less than 10 tables and full of Japanese business men (read: smoke). The menu is only in Japanese too, except one of the waitresses speak Chinese (and maybe English?). Anyways, just point to the first item on the first page of the menu, which is the tonkatsu. There's a question of whether you want leaner or fatter meat --- either one is delicious. If you can make out the other items in Japanese on the menu, I'm sure they're pretty yummy too (let me know what they are too).
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One of the biggest tea cafe chains in Shanghai. There's is also another chain by the same Chinese name by you can tell them apart from the English (the other one is called Be For Time). The "BiFengTang" 避风塘 seems to be the original one. One is on Nanjing Rd and corner of TongRen Rd, and the other is on ChangShu Rd before hitting ChangLe Rd. You can pretty much order most of the popular dim sum items, along with fried rice and noodles. Their sweet pork buns are very good (they also sell packaged frozen dim sum items in supermarkets). The one on Nanjing Rd has a nice sidewalk seating with window shields.
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"WuQi" in Chinese means "house", and the name alludes the different types of soups the restaurant has to offer, which resemble what Cantonese grandmas would make at home for the family. The typical ones come in chick, duck, or pork rib soup base, with more nutrient/medicinal ingredients added in. These soups are usually simmered over several hours to make sure the flavors are fully extracted; the stuff in the soup don't have to be eaten since it's the soup that's the star. The restaurant also serve other Hong Kong/Cantonese dishes in a tea cafe style but do try their soups. There are 2 locations: one on Yuyuan Rd behind Jiuguang on Nanjing Rd in the alley near the Zara shop across from Plaza 66.
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