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( 6258 9758; 3rd fl, 1068 West Beijing Rd; 1068 3 hotpot per person from Y60; ; West Nanjing Rd) This Sichuanese hotpot restaurant is all about service, and the assault begins the minute you walk in the door. Predining options include complimentary shoe shines, manicures and trays of fresh fruit; once you’ve actually sat down, the buzz of activity continues with the donning of matching red aprons and a YouTube-worthy noodle-stretching dance performance (order lao mian).

Hai Di Lao sets the standard for sauce bars across the country – make sure your table has enough bowls to fully appreciate the range of flavours available. While it’s great for group meals, this is definitely not a place to dine alone or to go on a date.

Neighbourhood Walk: Jing’an Walking Tour

Start West Nanjing Rd Metro Station

End Ohel Rachel Synagogue

Distance 1.7km

Duration 1½ hours

Begin by walking through the Bubbling Well Road Apartments (Jing’an Bieshu), which you can enter off West Nanjing Rd. One of the most delightful surviving new-style lilong housing complexes in Shanghai, with three-storey red-brick houses built between 1928 and 1932, it’s a great spot to observe daily residential life – people walking their dogs, playing cards or hanging out laundry to dry. This is all mixed in with a new crop of tiny ground-floor cafes, boutiques and old-fashioned barber shops – look for places such as Fan Jia (at No 61 (open from noon to 8pm), which sells Tibetan Buddhist–themed jewellery.

Exit at the south end of the complex, which faces Sun Court, a 1928 apartment block, and turn left onto Weihai Rd. Continue right onto North Maoming Rd and explore the lovingly preserved shikumen (stone-gate) architecture of the Former Residence of Mao Zedong, where a 30-year old Mao once lived for several months in 1924.

Retrace your steps and return to Sun Court, continuing west down Weihai Rd and passing a tea shop (Xiaoye Mingcha) at No 686, with a fabulous collection of aged pu’er cakes lining the walls. Turn right onto North Shaanxi Rd, where you’ll eventually get a glimpse of an enormous garden residence (1918) at No 186, which once belonged to Wuxi native Rong Zongjing, one of Shanghai’s most powerful industrialists at the time. Rong Zongjing’s nephew, Rong Yiren, was one of the rare individuals with a capitalist background to succeed in communist China, becoming vice mayor of Shanghai in 1957 and later vice president of the PRC from 1993 to 1998.

Follow Shaanxi Rd north, past Grace Baptist Church at No 375 (moved here in 1942), until you reach the Sassoon-built Ohel Rachel Synagogue (1920) at No 500, the first of seven synagogues built in Shanghai (only two remain). It is closed to the public.

Lynn Shanghainese $$

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14