Jade on 36

Good view of Huangpu river to Puxi, plush decor, elegant, very Western, luxury, high-end, give your taste buds a sensual experience, give yourself a very pleasing food presentation show, still hungry afterward....

We were at Jade on 36 last night for dinner with Audrey's business partner. The place was on top floor of the Shangri-la hotel. But this building is dwarfed by the two buildings next door: the Jinmao and the Shanghai financial center; both buildings are one of the tallest in the world.

The menu is a set menu, ranged from Small to Medium to Large. The small is a 4-course meal, medium is 6-course and large is 8-course. It comes with two big bottles of complimentary mineral water or a bottle of champagne.

I took the medium Prune. The meal started with a complementary bread and sardine mouse presented in a sardine can. Nice. A bit too watery. Then the Crunchy Fierce Salad. It came in a big bowl with leafs at the bottom and several layers of various fried "something" (a bit too dark to identify). Crushed everything up, mixed and ate. The lime dressing mixed with the crushed up fried things with the leafy green was really good. A refreshing taste to my tongue. Then came the Fragrois, it wasn't much thank god! It was only a little bit, the side and shape of the Japanese pocky stick. The outside is candy coated with the fragrois inside. It was presented with a silver ash tray. The berry flavour was nice. Then came the lobster. It was a very small baby crawl served in a bowl with a galeton sheet covered over the bowl. Nice presentation. Lobster is lobster, hard to make it tasty. Then the my main course came; the black cod. O I missed eating fish. The cod came in a very large bowl; but the portion was the size of a MacDonald's chicken nugget. Served with the equal portion of rice and a compliment of steamed green, same portion. Haha.... After the meal, we were offered frozen water melon on a stick to wash our pallets. Then my dessert came. My Lychee came on two sticks. It was not lychee, it was lychee froam wrapping up a berry of some sort. One bite, two bite, my dessert was done. Then we had a complimentary apple toffee in an expresso cup. Sweet and sour.

After two hours of sensual and tasting experience, the bill came to RMB2,800. When I wrote the tips in the Visa bill, the waiter asked if I could pay cash for the tips; if not, the Chinese gov't takes a cut and they cannot get the full amount, if any. Wow.

Still hungry. A bowl of cereal before bed was in order.