Author: life-china

You don’t have to be German to join the German Chamber of Commerce. You don’t have to be British to join the British Chamber and the European Union welcomes all foreign-invested companies to their Chamber. So if and when you are looking to join a Chamber, a vital resource for any foreign company doing business in China, it pays to shop around. Do you want to party with the Aussies or get political with the Americans? Get a discount on professional services like payroll and accounting from the German Chamber? It’s all out there, depending on what your...

RYE&CO 6-7/F, Xintiandi Plaza, 333 Huaihai Zhong Lu, near Hu... View ListingTaxi Printout Quick Take: Part bakery, part bistro, part cocktail lounge from The Nest people, perched atop a (re)brand new mall What It Is: The rumored third venue from the crew behind The Nest and The Cannery is called . It occupies two stacked corner spots in the new Xintiandi Plaza, which scaffolded an old legacy mall (Taiping Yang) and replaced it with a bright and airy 21st century mall. It's kind of two venues (Rye&Co, not the mall). Let's describe them separately!...

Tea houses have been trendy in Shanghai since the Qing Dynasty. They were the venues where we hosted our Qing Dynasty versions of comedy clubs and storytelling workshops, where meetups and hours-long conversations took place. But even our ancestors would be shocked by how saturated the tea house market is now, as the rising middle-class and elites are more and more inclined to spend a few hundred kuai on fine tea and the cultural value (or social symbol?) behind it. Finding a decent Chinese tea house in New York or London is hard, but in Shanghai? We...

Red Lobster LG1/F, IFC Pudong, 8 Shiji Dadao, near Lujiazui Huan ... View ListingTaxi Printout Quick Take: Seafood like it's your birthday What It Is: When I was six and I finally got to decide where the family would eat for my birthday, I picked Subway for their meatball subs. Then I grew up. No longer enthralled by picking the meatballs out of my subs, I demanded a more refined experience for my newly sophisticated, almost-nine-years-old palate. I wanted something that said class, taste, elegance and popcorn shrimp. I wanted Red Lobster. I ate so...