Famous Bars in Shanghai-Volar & Attica

Volar has the best liquor.

This bar is famous of its “member system” and its design-it is designed by famous French designer Philippe Starck. Besides, people find that the cocktail there is amazing, too. The liquor menu of Volar contains Martini, Long Cocktail, Short Cocktail, Champagne Cocktail, Shooter and Classic Cocktail. There are a lot of choices you can have and all the materials used to make liquor are extremely fresh. What must be mentioned here is that Volar has a lot of "Volar liquor" which means the compounding of the drink is specially designed by Volar. For example, it has a "Volar Martini" that is made of Martini and watermelon juice. Having a fantastic look and a fantastic taste, the Volar Martini is so popular among the customers that it became the most famous drink in Volar. Besides, Volar also has a kind of liquor called “Bonbon” which means candy in French containing the “vanilla sugar”. This kind of vanilla sugar is specially made by Volar itself and just serves in this bar. You will not have this liquor unless you are in Volar.

Here is another bar called Attica which has the best gazebo.

Attica is located in the Bund which is a place for business, sightseeing and government. Therefore the location is not so good for this bar in some extent but it also provides Attica an advantage: the view.

According to the size of the gazebo, the facilities on the gazebo and the view from the gazebo, Attica is no doubt the best one. It is the only place that has two gazebos in the Bund. Both of these two gazebos are very big. One is for the dance floor and the other is for the restaurant but when a party is being held, both gazebos are open for dance floor. Attica has excellent facilities on the gazebo: wood floor, comfortable sofas, beautiful benches and sands on the edges, which apply a feeling of beach to the gazebo. Also, located on the 11th floor, a fantastic view of the Bund can be seen thoroughly from Attica. See the picture you will understand why it is the best gazebo among so many pubs in Shanghai.

The road Hengshan Road

Shanghai is the city of night life. If you like to go clubbing, there is a place in Shanghai you can never miss: The Hengshan Road.

This is a road full of bars; this is a road full of the feeling of elegancy. The Hengshan Road used to be a part of the districts that belong to France, so there are a lot of French style buildings along Hengshan Road, which makes this road surrounded by an aroma of European.

On such an elegant road, there locate a lot of high-class restaurants of both Chinese and foreign cuisines. For example, along this road you can find Australia barbeque, Vietnamese cuisine, Music Thesis restaurant, Japanese Sushi, German restaurant, Thai cuisine, Italian restaurant, Shanghai cuisine, Cantonese restaurant, Sichuan food…… Here you can have the fantastic food in Shanghai in the best environment because in order to be matched the feeling of the road well, all the restaurants are well designed and decorated. See some pictures of Hengshan road so that you will understand how those restaurants look like.

There are also more than thirty bars around this road. Though I have never been to bars in Shanghai, I have heard of them a lot of times. They are so familiar in Shanghai and all of them are well designed and decorated as well. Each bar has its own characteristic. For instance, Bonbon is the most popular bar among youngsters. Even you go there during week days, it is full. The most attractive aspect of Bonbon is hat it has excellent DJs and it is the only club in Asia which affiliated to Godskitchen. Each weekend Bonbon will invite one of the top DJs in the world.

（Bonbon)

Where to play-Wujiang Road

A road full of Dim Sum stores, cafés and restaurants! You should never miss this！

Wujiang Road is so famous among Shanghai people that everybody considers going to Wujiang Road as one of the greatest enjoyments. Maybe among them I am one of the top lovers of Wujiang Road. I love eating so much and here is my paradise.

I wonder if there is someone else who takes eating as the greatest enjoyment just like me. I can spend my whole afternoon in Wujiang Road, eating from this snack bar to another.

You can taste all the Dim Sums I mentioned here in Wujiang Road and you can also have something that's extremely special. For example, you can have scalloped devilfish, Sichuan spicy and sour noodle, specially toasted chicken wings, toasted scallop, shaved ice, lobster and so on. Being surrounded with so many delicious foods always makes me crazy.

One thing I would like to talk about is the lobster bars in Wujiang Road. Shanghai people eat lobster as a kind of midnight snacks sometimes. Once I went to Wujiang Road at 0 o’clock AM, I was surprised to find the lobster bars full of people. People sat there, talking and continuously eating the lobster until 2 o’clock. It was an amazing experience to see so many people eat so late and for so long and I finally realized that Wujiang Road is crowded with all foods, smoke and people all the time. No matter how late into the night or how early in th e morning. Here is the place for foods lovers. Here is my paradise.

Where to play-People's Square

(People's Square)

People who have been to Shanghai must know the People’s Square. We can call it the center of Shanghai. Everyday People’s Square is full of tourists and local youngsters.

Adults may think there is nowhere worth going around People’s Square but to the teenagers, it’s totally different. It is the best place to hang out because you can find a lot of fun there. A mall named “Raffles City” is located next to People’s Square and I believe it is the most popular mall in Shanghai. Like Super Brand Mall, Raffles City is an entertainment center with stores, restaurants and cinemas too. If you go to Raffles City, you will find there are always a lot of people waiting at the gate of the mall. Please don’t feel it is weird. Because the People’s Square is a center of transportations in Shanghai-three subway lines stop at this station and a lot of bus lines stop here and people from every corner of Shanghai can get here easily, we like to set Raffles city as the place to meet and then go somewhere else. For us young people, we like to meet at the entrance of the mall and then go in together to eat something. Raffles City is famous of its Dim Sums by the way.

Underneath People’s Square, there is a “Dimei Mall”. This one is made for girls, especially school girls. There are a lot of fashion clothes and furnishings sold in the mall and all of them are extremely cheap. For example, you can buy a scarf or a hat for 20RMB(less than 3 dollars). When you go to Dimei, you will feel you are in a colorful fashion world-beautiful fashion clothes and beautiful fashionable girls are everywhere.

Where to play-Shopping in Super Brand Mall and Bingjiang Road

(Oriental Pearl Tower and Lujiazui)

Here is one of the landmarks in Shanghai-Oriental Pearl Tower. It is the fifth highest building in the world. The tower is located in a business district called Lujuazui. This is a golden area of Shanghai, even in China because Lujiazui will be built into a financial and trade center of China. In such a business district, across frpm the Oriental Pearl Tower, abet to Huangpu River, is the “Super Brand Mall”. It is the biggest shopping mall in mainland China and the 8th biggest shopping mall in Asia. It has 13 floors with 241,000 square meters of each floor and more than a thousand of big brands. In some floors, two hundred thousand square meters in the mall are the places for international famous brands and forty thousand square meters are the jewelry arcades. In the other floors, Super Brand Mall also has entertainment centers, fitness centers, bookstores, a lot of restaurants, tea houses, cafes, and cinemas. It is much more an entertainment center than just a mall.

(Bingjiang Road)

I like the restaurants in Super Brand Mall very much beacuse if you get a seat close to the window, you can have a great view of Huangpu River and the Bund. Enjoying a good view while you are eating is so fantastic. If you want to get closer to the Huangpu River, you can walk out of Super Brand Mall and go to Bingjiang Road which is just next to Super Brand Mall. Actually, Bingjiang Road is long river bank instead of a road. There are several cafés, restaurants, ice-cream stores and dessert stores on the bank. After a day of shopping in the mall, it will be a great enjoyment to sit on the bank, feeling the wind blow, see the great view of the Bund on the opposite of the river and have a cup of iced coffee or ice-cream.

What to play in Shanghai- Shopping in Huaihai Road and Nanjing Road

(Huaihai Road)

“Shopping” is always an inviting word to people living in a city. If you ask Shanghai people what he/she does most in his/her leisure time, probably 90 percent of them will answer “Shopping”. Fortunately, Shanghai is a good place for shopping. It has countless malls and streets for shopping.

The most popular place for shopping in Shanghai is Huaihai Road. There are a lot of malls and stores open along the street. Besides, there are also many cafés and restaurants on the street so if you are tired of walking, thirsty or hungry there is always a place to rest. The street is also well decorated and there are silver lights hanging on the trees along the road. If you go the Huaihai Road in night, you will feel like you are in paradise. However, the things sold in Huaihai Road are a little expensive. You can find all the famous brands there, but no discount. Here is the picture of Huaihai Road.

Another famous place for Shopping is the Nanjing Road. I believe every tourist in Shanghai has been to Nanjing road. However Nanjing road is divided into two parts: East Nanjing Road and West Nanjing Road. East Nanjing road is a pedestrian street and it is so famous to the tourists that even in late night, it is full with the travelers. They come here to see “Shanghai”-colorful lights, crowds, shopping arcades…This pedestrian street shows what Shanghai is: A sleepless city. Since there are too many tourists in East Nanjing Road, the locals don’t like to go there. Instead, Shanghai people like to go West Nanjing Road. West Nanjing Road is just a normal road, not a pedestrian with malls and stores on both sides. There are big malls selling famous brands at a high price, big malls selling famous brands with an incredible big discount, delicate stores selling expensive things and small stores selling cheap things. It depends on you what kind of malls or stores you like to go. West Nanjing Road is very long, even if you spend a whole day shopping in that street, you still cannot walk to the end.

(East Nanjing Road)

(West Nanjing Road)

What to play in Shanghai- Tea houses and Qi Pai Shi

We like to spend our time in a tea house, but this kind of tea houses are not the same as the tradition ones.

There is a tea house chain in Shanghai called Bi Feng Tang and they offer almost all kinds of beverages except real tea. You can have ice-cream, soda, bubble tea and a lot of drinks in this tea house and you don’t need to worry how much you have drink because it is a kind of “drink buffet”. If you go into a Bi Feng Tang, you only need to pay about 15-30 RMB and then you can sit in the tea house and drink whatever you like for however long you like. The tea house also hasa lot of snacks like nuts and melon seeds for free. You can do much more than chatting in a tea house.You can play cards, chess and a lot of games. The tea house can offer you cards, chess, I-go, Chinese checkers, game paddle, etc. Usually my friends and I spend a whole afternoon in a Bi Feng Tang near our high school, eating ice-cream and playing cards.

Another kind of place to play cards in is called “Qi Pai Shi”. If translated into English, it means a room for playing cards and mahjong. In some places, the “Qi Pai Shi” owners just have an extremely big room and put a lot of square tables in it for people to play. When you come in, tell the front desk clerk which table you will sit and then just sit there playing cards of mahjong with others. When you go out, the clerk will tell you how much you need to pay according to the time you have been in it. However, in most cases, the owner will divide the place into small rooms and equip each room with a mahjong table or a normal square table for cards. Since people usually come with friends, you only need to tell the clerk you want to play mahjong or cards and a waiter/waitress will appear to show you the way to your room. You play in your own room without the disturbance of others and pay when you get out of the Qi Pai Shi. The pay is also calculated by the time. It is very similar to KTV.

What to play in Shanghai-KTV!

KTV is the hottest entertainment in Shanghai currently and it is popular among people of all ages. The full name of KTV is “Karaoke Television”. Usually a KTV company rents a large place, like a whole floor of a shopping mall, and divides it into a lot of rooms in a range of big, medium and small. Each room is equipped with a big HDTV, a machine which you can use to choose the song, long sofas and microphones. The TV and song-choosing machine are controlled by a computer.

(a KTV room)


When a bunch of people go to a KTV, tell the front desk clerk how many rooms you want and how big you want the room to be. For example, if there are only two or three prople, you can choose a mini room; if there are three to five people, you can chose a small one; if there are five to ten people, you can choose a medium; ten to fifteen people would require a big one (a big room is often equipped with two televisions, sometimes even a bar and a stage); if there are more than fifteen people, asking for more than one room is a better choice.

Then a waiter/waitress will appear to show you the way to your room. The pathways into a KTV are always like a maze since there are too many rooms and they all look the same. When you arrive at your room the waiter will help to give you new microphones, turn on the song-choosing machine and from now on they begin to clock your time because the pay in a KTV is calculated by the amount of time you spend there.

Now you can begin your entertainment just by choosing whatever songs you like and then singing. A KTV company often has thousands of songs for you to choose in a variety of language, location and time. Besides, during the time you spend in a KTV, if you a hungry or thirsty, you can order some food and drink just by pressing the service button on the remote of the TV. A waiter/waitress will come to your room after you press the button and take your order. Several minutes later, he/she will bring your food and/or drink to your room. Recently, a kind of new KTV which is equipped with a buffet has appeared in Shanghai. In such KTVs you pay for a 2~3 hour with a meal per person. During your time, you can both sing in your room and pick out whatever you want to eat in the buffet and then bring them back to your room to eat.

Street Dim Sums in Shanghai-Shaomai

This is Shanghai people’s typical breakfast-Shaomai. Don’t ask me if it tastes good because I am so familiar with it that I can’t judge it correctly.It is like someone is asking you if bacon and scrambled eggs taste good. How would you answer him? Isn’t it good? Yes, it’s not bad…umm…but I just don’t have so much feeling for it since I eat it so frequently.

We eat Shaomai so frequently that we lose our feelings about it, but to be fair, it tastes not too bad.

The stuffing of Shanghai Shaomai is made of sticky rice, pork and mushroom; the surface is made of flour. However, Shaomai in other places are totally different. I know people in Guangdong use shrimp, crab and pork to make the stuffing and use eggs to do the surface. We can see the pictures of Shanghai Shaomai and Guangdong Shaomai as a comparison.

If we want to make Shanghai Shaomai, firstly we should steam the sticky rice.
Then add green onion and salt to the pork and pan-fry all of it.


The mushrooms should be pan-fried too.

When the mushrooms are almost ready, put the cooked sticky rice and pork in the pot and pan-fry everything together. Remember to season it in the end.

Next, wait for everything to cool down and roll them into little balls.

Finally use the skin made of flour (I think it is same as dumpling's surface) to pack the rolls and steam it for 5 minutes.

Maybe you are confused why I call Shaomai “Dim Sum” since I already said it is a kind of breakfast. Actually in China, Dim Sum and breakfast can be the same thing in some extent. People like to eat soymilk, Xiaolong, Shengjian, Baojiaobu, Tofu pudding for breakfast but they will also eat them during daytime whenever they want. For me, I like to buy a Shaomai at noontime and eat it in afternoon when I am hungry.

Street Dim Sums in Shanghai-Steamed Creamy Custard Bun

Steamed Creamy Custard Bun! When I saw this picture, I went crazy. You will never know how much I miss this.

I believe a lot of Americans know there is a kind of food called steamed stuffed bun in China but I’m not sure if they know that there are a variety of steamed stuffed buns in China as they have different stuffing. The steamed stuffed bun is called “Baozi” in China by the way.

We have both salty and sweet steamed stuffed buns and among the sweet ones, the bun with sweetened bean paste and the bun with cream custard are most common. Those with sweetened bean paste can be seen everywhere in China but the steamed creamy custard bun is more popular in Shanghai. I didn't know how this food was made before I searched the net. The taste is fantastic but it’s hard to tell such a taste comes from…The process of making steamed creamy custard bun is very complicated.

To make the stuffing, butter has to be stirred first and while we are stirring, we need to add sugar, egg, milk, wheat flour, and custard powder in it. Then steam the mix and during the process of steaming, keep stirring. When it begins to set, the stuffing is done. Now what we should do is put the stuffing in a “Chinese bun” and steam the whole bun.

This is a picture of steamed creamy custard buns which shows the stuffing.

Steamed creamy custard buns can be seen in many places other than Shanghai, but those from other places are different from those from Shanghai. They have different surfaces. Other steamed creamy custard buns have a translucent surface which tastes better than the regular surface but is more difficult to make.
This is a picture of steamed creamy custard buns with a trusculent surface. They are more delicate.

Street Dim Sums in Shanghai-Paigu Niangao

Do you know what the most distinguished thing about Chinese food? This is a sentence that I just read from a Shanghai expat’s blog:

“Chinese can have thousands of ways to cook one kind of food. Thousands of pork cuisines, thousands of beef cuisines and the same goes with chicken, fish, shrimp and vegetables.”

That’s true. Here I want to introduce another cuisine of rice cake which is also a kind of street snack. This one is really really delicious and “Shanghai-featured”.

It is called “Paigu Niangao” and if translated to English, it should be called “Pork Chop and rice cake with sugar and soy sauce”.

People firstly apply a lot of seasoning on the pork chops like some green onions, cooking wine, soy sauce and flour and then fry it. When the pork chop is almost cooked, makers just move it out and then pan fry some other seasonings and spices like Chinese cinnamon, ginger, pepper and cloves. Then, they put them onto the pork chop and add water, salt and sugar to it to make it like a soup. When the soup is cooked, rice cake is added in and let it cook for a while. This step may take long because the soup will continue boiling until all the liquid become a kind of thick juice. Eventually, makers move out the rice cake and pork chop and then apply the thick juice on them. It seems like a dish, but actually it is a kind of traditional dim sum in Shanghai.

One thing that amazed me much was that this food is not available in other places in China. I don’t know why. Maybe this is the reason why the “Paogu Niangao” is considered very “Shanghai- featured”. I can’t describe what its flavor is really like but you will understand only when you actually try it. I can only say, “It’s really amazing! Everybody should try it. All Shanghai people like it, all Chinese people from other cities compliment it and all foreigners will definitely like it!”

Street Dimsums in Shanghai-Stuffued Rice-cake

When I asked my roommates who both have lived in Shanghai for a long time, none of them have eaten the stuffed rice cake. I was really confused then because the stuffed rice cake was one of Shanghai's most famous dim sum, too. How can they not know this food since they know all the foods that I wrote about?

I search the net; somebody is saying that the stuffed rice cake is one of the foods that are gradually disappearing. That is true, I guess, because I cannot even find a picture of the stuffed rice cake and I remembered there were really few stalls of the stuffed rice cake in Shanghai now. However, I just can’t imagine that how can such a delicious food disappear?

Have you ever tasted the food “rice cake” in China? It’s soft, made of rice and has a certain shape. The shape depends on the maker. Usually we cut the rice cake to piece to cook in our daily lift and when the Spring Festival comes, we make it in the shape like a big cake, a fish or anything you like. However, the stuffed rice cake is a little different. Because the makers need to use the rice cake to roll the stuffing up, it should be extremely soft, like a kind of eatable play dough. When you buy a stuffed rice cake, you can pick anything you like in the rice cake. Usually, if we want to eat sweet, we will ask for black sesame and sugar; if we want to eat salty, we might ask for Chinese styled twisted cruller, crushed dried pork and/or sausage.

When I go back to Shanghai, I will definitely buy some stuffed rice cakes for my roommates.

Street Dimsums in Shanghai-Mini Wonton

When I was still a child and still lived in Yonglefang, every weekend an old granny would push her little cart into the alley selling mini wontons. Eating mini wontons on weekends became my largest expectation every week.

There is a kind of food called wonton in China. It is a little bit to dumplings. People knead dough and roll them into thin square pieces for the wrapping. Unlike dumplings, the wrapping is round. A variety of foods can be used for the stuffing in the wonton. Usually one type of meat and one type of vegetable is used such as pork and celery or beef and corn. Of course there is also a type of wonton that has only a single such as cod fish and shrimp. Makers use a very complicated way to wrap the stuffing into the wrapping. The difference between mini wontons and wontons is the skin of mini wontons are about one-third thinner and the stuffing is usually consisted of only park. When making it a very small portion of pork is put in the hand. Then, the skin is wrapped around it. Lastly, it is squeezed into a ball. When cooked, dried shrimp and purple seawood is added into the soup (a little similar to tofu pudding).

When eating mini wontons, it should be eaten one at a time. It would be even better to sip a bit of soup while eating it. This dish is a very suitable a midnight snack or breakfast.

(This is a picture of ordinary Wonton)

Street Dim Sums in Shanghai-Congyou Pancake

I still remember during the winter days of my high school life, when school ended the sky was already dark. On my way home I always saw an aged woman making and selling ‘cong you’ pancakes. ‘Cong you’ means the taste and smell of green onions. Everytime I passed by, I always bought a piece and filled the surface with sweet sauce. On the way home I would walk and eat it at the same time feeling the surge of the aroma of green onions in my noise. This special dimsum drained the boringness out of the walk home.

The difference between ‘bao jiao bu’ and pancakes is the sellers always have a heated iron pan and sell the pancakes while making it. Makers mix flour, shredded green onions and vegetable oil to make into dough. When they are ready to pan fry it, a droplet of oil is added on the pan. Then, a small portion of dough is pressed flat and fried on both sides until the surface turn into a light golden brown color. If customers require it an egg can be added with the pancake. The egg is beaten , fried into a thin sheet and rolled over the pancake. Customers can also add the choice of sauce including sweet sauce, spicy sauce or spicy oil.

‘Cong you’ pancake may be one of the cheapest dimsums in Shanghai. One can cost even less than 1 RMB. However, it is a favorite dimsum of most local people of all age. Even those who hate to eat green onions like the taste of ‘cong you’ pancakes.

Street Dim Sums in Shanghai-Tofu Pudding

Have you ever eaten salty pudding? In China, there is a kind of food called tofu pudding which is another kind of Shanghai street dimsum. It is one my favorite dimsum. People usually eat it for breakfast with shen jian, guo tie (Pot stickers), xiao long bao.

First, soak soybeans in water. Then, grind the soybeans into fine particulates and sift it into soybean drink. After adding plaster into the soybean drink it eventually becomes tofu. However, if too little plaster is added it will not turn into tofu but will turn into a mix of solid and liquid which is called tofu pudding.

When people want to eat tofu pudding, they will put it in a small bowl and add in a variety of condiments and vegetables, meat or seafood. Different regions of China have different ways of eating tofu pudding. In the northern part of China, people like to put in grinded meat, chopped scallion pieces etc. In Taiwan, people will mix in sugar water, fruit or dumplings. In the summer, they freeze the tofu pudding and consume it as a drink. In the winter, they heat it add in sugar water and consume it as a type of soup. Shanghai is located on the eastern coast of China so people like to add in seafood products such as kelp, purple seaweed and dried shrimp. It is also common to add parsley and soy sauce which makes it very delicious and has the unique taste of Shanghai.