If you're thinking of getting out of Shanghai there are two obvious choices. There they are on the map, barely a stone's throw from the city, right next to a bunch of lakes and maybe even some trees.
If there's one thing I loathe (apart from the Shanghai driving style) it's when you don't post for a while, apologize publicly (as if that matters), declare that everything is going to change and then do nothing about it.
Normally when a restaurant owner bellows “everything’s good!” it isn’t. Bella Mia’s big surprise is that it actually is.
There are two keys to Italian cuisine: good produce and simple preparation. Tivoli manages neither. As a result, they offer a huge menu of mostly bland, completely forgettable fare and a pretty good pizza. The seafood soup (RMB78) is freezer-fresh, doused in a watery tomato base, as is the pumpkin ravioli (RMB78). We couldn’t soak it up even with lashings of too-salty Parmesan.
Chloe’s serves up the kind of food an American expat in Shanghai dreams about when they’re smiling politely at a plate of Sichuan chicken bones. Tucked down an alley behind Lujiazui, longtime Shanghai chef Eric Brown awaits with big arms and even bigger portions of bar grub classics. If this is what comfort food is to you, Chloe’s has the homesickness fix you need.
In the minds of we Shanghainizzles, Chongming is the city's NYC Long Island. We imagine lush greenery, sea breezes and coastal roads. Our mid-term plans include a beach side weekend house in Xiaohamton. We'll cruise there in the drop-top on weekends and munch on snow crab legs.