I found Amokka on the way to the traditional market. It sits on the quiet stretch of Anfu Rd between Urumuqi and Wukang Rd near Shanghai Dramatic Center. It's a 2-story house with a big open space on the 2nd floor. The furnitures have a modern designer look. The menu is a standard fare of sandwiches, pastas, burgers, etc. The pricing is average for western meals, with business lunch sets around $50 and higher for meat dishes. The breakfast/brunch goes for $28 but doesn't include a drink. I like the baguette sandwich with bacon and eggs, with a small side of salad (although I made an equally yummy sandwich myself with baguette I bought down the street at Feidan the next day). The cafe is not yet that popular so you can enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. While I feel grateful that so many nice looking old houses are getting converted into cafes, something is amiss --- maybe it's personality??
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Tags: breakfast,
brunch,
Cafe,
lunch set
This Australian chain is among the many foreign contenders for the espresso market. Since I'm always in favor of the minority shops, I try to go here and Coffee Beans over Starbucks. Their drinks are made better than Starbucks in my opinion. They use the "green label" type of milk that ordinary consumers cannot get their hands on. One time I asked the barista if I could buy their milk, and instead, he taught me how to make perfect frothing with your regular Bright Light milk (blue carton kind which tends to puff up too much when you try to froth). The trick is to heat up the milk a bit (but not burning it), put it in the frig for a couple minutes to cool down, and then froth it. I tried it and was happy with the results.
Anyhow, my point is that Jamaica Blue is holding its own in this competitive markets, and they just need to have more locations to compete with the bigger guys...
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aFP, as it's known, was one of the first brunch cafes I discovered in Shanghai. It's tucked in deep in an alley that's literally a stone's throw away behind my apartment, but unfortunately, all the passageways between us are blocked off so I still have to go around to Huashan Rd to enter. The cafe is connected to the cute little Old House Inn (which I wish I own) and serves that guests there breakfast. The owner had built a greenhouse type room with AC in the front part of the yard, while the back part is open-air seating. The inside of the cafe is pretty small with 2 chambers with progressive furnitures like corrugated cardboard chairs and ultra-thin water glasses.
The cafe is coming up 2 years old and now there's a smaller crowd given there are many many more places that opened during this time, but it's still a respectable place with style. Their menus are colorful with curious names for the dishes. I like to go there for breakfast/brunch, where you can get the likes of scrambles, spinach, mash potatoes, etc. For dinners, you have a good selection of salads, soups, pastas, meats, and seafood. The dishes all have great presentations but sometime could be too salty. They use local meat for steaks, which is fine, but it tasted just so-so last time we ordered. The dinner portions are definitely big, and I always have leftovers to take home.
This cafe definitely has the ambience and I like to take visitors there. However, I wish they can throw in some twists once in awhile (even some re-decoration) so repeat diners can be pleasantly surprised. Also, like with every restaurant, aFP needs to make sure trainee chefs are fully up to snuff before letting them take the helm or risk tarnishing its reputation.
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In the morning if you walk down streets with food vendors/breakfast shops, you might see people crowding around big bamboo steamers full of white buns. These buns, or "bao zi" are stuffed with meat, veggies, or sweat bean paste. Another variation is called "mantou," which has no stuffing in it, but may have sesame or chopped scalions sprinkled on them. Each costs only $.40-.85RMB, and I always thought that if I ever run out of money, I can still afford these baozi... A soy milk drink complements it well. "Babi" is a quite popular chain around Shanghai, and they have a slogan "have you Babied today?' Good baozi should be soft and full of stuffing. Eat them while hot!
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