Lynn restaurant

(OMG The Blogger firewall has been turned off! Woohoo!)

"Lynn", a brand new landmark in Shanghai's restaurant industry. To enjoy delicacies in a modern atmosphere will certainly make you relaxed and happy.

Lynn Restaurant, located in the intersection of Nanjing Road West and XiKang Road. The six feet high ceiling gives extensive vision to the restaurant, the two rows of floor-type wine cabinet at the entrance collect not only vintage wines from all over the world, but also Lynn's home-made top-grade wine. The huge tangerine fresco transmits warmth to every guest. Elegant pieces of antiquity furniture and beautiful ikebana set off low profile but luxurious atmosphere. The semi-closed separate rooms ensure you to enjoy the elegant environment of the restaurant as well as adequate
privacy.

Lynn restaurant tries to create new Shanghai Cuisines. Here, Chinese cuisines are prepared in a western way and western foods are enjoyed in a Chinese way. It's wine flavored French goose liver, Italy jellyfish with vinegar and red wine, Heilongjiang smoked egg with roe, golden pomfret, Belgium chicory and arugula salad, eight treasure hot sauce mixed with butter bean curd, smoked pomfret with jasmine flower and salad juice, all these dishes are perfect integration of both Chinese and Western foods whether in terms of ingredients or in preparation. The "Five Flavor" cold dish integrates all tastes in one dish and the seafood crispy rice with abalone juice treated in Korea-type stone wok makes you intoxicated till the last bite.

The lunch dishes are custom-made for the white collars, healthy and tasteful. Varieties of fresh fruit juices with delicate cold dishes and Shanghai and Hong Kong snacks are not only healthy but value added.

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Lynn is busy and big and a comforting din all but drowns the contemporary lounge music. There's a film set, New York slickness to the overall effect.

As prospective diners enter and climb some cool marble steps, a decent wine selection lining the walls, greeters welcome at the top of the short flight.

Guided round a partition wall diners are presented with a grand dining hall that looks somehow familiar and immediately aesthetically gratifying. Perhaps it's the dimensions, deep and with a high ceiling. The coloring is dramatic black and white with bold reds and light woods. There's a mixture of stand-alone tables and booths all classically set and during both of Shanghai Daily's lunchtime visits it has been packed.

Lynn is the Shanghainese-style restaurant that the busy Shanghai Center's environ deserves and, with hindsight, is long overdue. Let's face it going to Italy and eating Chinese food would just be plain daft.

The menu comprises many of those favorite dishes found in the earlier mentioned establishments, various dumplings, duck, minced chicken with pine nuts, soups and the usual suspects of seasonally-priced seafood. Lunchtime has set menus on offer with the 70 yuan (US$9.05) deal being the one to go for.

It affords four courses with the likes of a mixed platter: Smoked egg and caviar, fried fish, cold chicken; soup, double-boiled meatballs with freshwater crab; vegetables; fried rice and fruit. The Lynn drink, a stimulating combination of apple, grapefruit, grape and celery, is well worth the 20 yuan. Service is effortlessly accomplished.

On arriving in this fair city I was bemused, no startled, by the notion of re nao - bustling with noise and excitement - and how the Chinese valued this, above all else, in their restaurants. I bemoaned the lack of ambience but now I stand converted.

For the full effect of Lynn get there not long after midday but book ahead. Certainly don't leave it till 1.30pm when lunch is virtually over. After all, this is China.

Link

It all started on 7 August last year when we saw this place. We didn't end up going (went to TMSK in Plaza 66 instead) but went back on 24 September when the inlaws were visiting. It cost about 490 for the 4 of us, including drinks. We were all blown away by the food. It was really tasty and amazing. My photos don't do it justice though!



Kiwifruit juice



Something I can't remember...



Thai-style fish with pinenuts





On Saturday I met up with a bunch of lovely ladies (I met through Facebook) for a all-you-can-eat dimsum (that's yumcha for you Aussies) brunch at a bargain price of 78 RMB per head. There were about 50 different dishes to choose from and it felt like we had all of them at one point! The quality and selection was really good. Unfortunately we spent so long chit-chatting and getting to know one another that before we knew it it was already 3pm and they were packing up the food and practically ushering us out the door, so the dessert was really really rushed. Still, I have no hesitation in recommending Lynn to anyone! especially if you are not used to the typical Shanghainese style of Chinese cooking. This is almost but not quite the more common and westernized Hong Kong style.




Vegetarian dish - my ayi has made this and it's one of my faves even though it's not much to look at (bean curd, bamboo and 'wood ear fungus')



Egg



Not sure since I didn't get around to tasting this - oops!



Chicken's feet and dimsums



Dim sims



Tiny little parcels wrapped in a tofu kind of skin. Nice.






Chinese-style green onion pancakes


BBQ pork buns




Lynn
99-1 Xikang Lu (near Nanjing Xi Lu, next to Plaza 66)
Phone: 6247 0101
Daily 11.30am - 2.30pm and 6.00pm - 10.00pm

Things to do in Shanghai...

After having guests stay with us recently I have made some mental notes of what they like to do.

Some are obvious like shop and eat, and shop some more, and eat some more... go to or just look at the Orient Pearl Tower. :)

Others which may not be so obvious but seem popular are:

1. Go to the fabric market. Get something made. If you want a suit you'll need at the very least a full week though. Simple things can be done in about 4 days. Bargain at least 10% if not 20% off! Start with 70% of the price they quote you. Addresses are listed in one of my older posts.

2. Get a massage. Massage places are EVERYWHERE and compared to almost any other country, are dirt cheap. The place we go to we pay 60 RMB for 1 hour for either a full body massage or foot massage. It is located in the Hongqiao/Gubei/Changning area known as "Little Japan" on Xianxia Lu and Zunyi Lu. It is always busy and they do a pretty good job!

When that's done, shop some more and eat some more ;)

Some places I can recommend are:

1. Xujiahui - where you can get anything under the sun, where there are 6? department stores, and the big Grand Gateway mall. Where the geeks can go crazy at Best Buy (or Metro City or Pacific Digital Plaza), and the foodies can go crazy at the top of Grand Gateway and Novel Place, and the shoe-aholics and clothes-aholics can go crazy at any store. My favourites are Pacific and No.6 department store. I can usually find clothes and shoes in there that I like at reasonable prices. The brands at Grand Gateway are generally way too expensive for me (since they are mostly foreign, mostly European brands). For basic staples (plain coloured tops, pants) Uniqlo (in GG) is great. Lots of easy-to-wear, mix-and-match stuff at great prices.

2. Huaihai Lu - previously known as Avenue Joffre, or the "Champs Elysee of the Orient" this road is about 15km long. Yep, mega long. It's divided up into three parts - West, Central and East. Most of the 'action' can be found in the Central part (which is also the longest). I have pretty much walked along the entire street. It is tiring but the most benefit can be gained (for a shopaholic) by walking across most of length of this street (not in the one go!). There is no point to take a taxi and you can take a bus or the subway but you miss a lot doing that since the stops can be far apart. If you are just randomly browsing it's much better to walk, and walk and... walk. Near Shaanxi Nan Lu, Maoming Nang Lu, Huangpi Nan Lu (and in between) there are lots of department stores and boutiques. This street is also the home of wedding dresses and bridal photography stores. One after another, big glass windows with glittering displays of fancy sequinned, frilled, coloured, embroidered, wedding dresses. Billions and billions of different kinds. They must do a good business because day or night, they are filled with customers looking at their large sample albums. I like to take the 911 bus along this street because it's a double decker one and you can feel like a real tourist sitting at the top and looking out the windows. At 2 RMB a trip it's fun just to ride the bus along the whole length of this road to get a feel of what it has to offer you! :) Once you have pinpointed the places that interest you (I actually marked on a map where my favourite stores were), then you can get out and start pounding the pavement.

3. Dain Ti Hill/Neo Tang Dynasty - crazy Chinese modern fushion cuisine. Really tasty. There are chains everywhere but seeing as I just talked about XJH there is one on the 5th floor of Grand Gateway. Usually it's so popular you have to queue for an hour or so but sometimes you can get lucky and only have to wait 5-10 minutes. There is also one in an expat type mall on Huahai Lu near the Hong Kong Plaza. The one with Delifrance out the front.

4. Lynn - modern Shanghainese cuisine. Now I don't normally like Chinese food much but this place was out of this world. It would have gotten a 10/10 if it weren't for the fact that they allowed smoking. The fish with pinenuts was absolutely delicious. It looks like an expensive type of place too (being right near the Ritz Carlton hotel and Nanjing Xi Lu) but for 4 people we paid 490 RMB including drinks.
99-1 Xikang Lu near Nanjing Xi Lu 西康路99-1号近南京西路

5. Wagas - the good ol' staple. My husband is addicted to this place. Opened by an Australian there are now restaurants all over Shanghai. It serves simple, healthy stuff - sandwiches, wraps, salads, pasta for a reasonable price, and great smoothies and freshly squeezed juices. Everything is really fresh! If you go after 6pm they have specials on the pasta. The one on Huaihai Lu near Huangpi Nan Lu is always busy and easily accessible.

Guinness 9 ball Asian tour launch party and Plaza 66 TMSK 66

July 3rd

Last night my husband and I went to the Guinness 9 ball Asian tour launch party in Shanghai. It was held in the Big Bamboo bar. The invite said "Dress: Black with touch of personality." Well the both of us got dressed up and wore our best black outfits. I wore a red headband and hubby was going to wear a clip on koala on his collar.

We got there and was terribly surprised and shocked that noone was really that dressed up! Everyone was really casual and hardly anyone wore black! Not only that, we didn't even need an invite :( Other than that it was OK I suppose but I couldn't stand to be there very long as it was just WAY too smokey. The entire two floors were reeking of it. The free Guinness was flowing but pity I don't drink beer. I had two sips just out of thirst but yuck. At least it doesn't smell like wine does though. I really can't stand the smell of wine.

Anyway...

One of hubby's colleagues turned up with his wife, and also a friend of his and his wife. They planned to have Hunanese cuisine in Pudong but we declined their invitation to go because it's just way too far from where we live (almost an hour) and it would cost quite a bit to get home given we'd have to take a taxi.

So we went walkabout in order to find somewhere to eat. Not hard given this is China! There are eateries everywhere and we were in the heart of expat central. We saw a nice Chinese place (Lynn) and hubby really wanted to go there but we kept looking. We ended back on the main street of Nanjing Xi Lu (Nanjing East Road) and waltzed into Plaza 66. It was almost 9pm and most stores were starting to close. For those that don't know, Plaza 66 it the ritziest shopping mall in Shanghai comprising of stores such as Tiffany's, Gucci, Dior, Prada, LV etc.

We both assumed that any restaurant there would cost an absolute fortune to eat in but we took the elevator up to the rooftop to take a looksie anyway. We were pleasantly surprised. There were three restaurants to choose from and we ended up choosing one that served three different cuisines - Shanghainese, Hunanese and Italian. I liked that there was a non-Chinese choice there! It was called TMSK 66 (dunno what it stands for).

Given the time we were the only people sitting in the whole restaurant. Actually, the restaurant is divided into two sections - one smoking, one non-smoking. Naturally we chose the latter. Since Chinese people generally eat pretty early at 9pm we were the only ones in the non-smoking section and there was one other party in the other section.

The decor was really something! It was kind of spacey, high tech and 'trippy'. It is so hard to describe so you may as well just look at my photos :) The cutlery and crockery all seemed to be custom made and designed too. The white ceramic bowls/plates had tiny holes cut out and in the hole was embedded a blue glass bead. The lighting was absolutely amazing and set up a great mood. We also noticed the music. We planned to ask what CD it was but forgot, so I rang them up the next day and they told me it was by "Buddha Bar". Since finding this out i have downloaded many tracks from these fantastic albums!! They are instrumental and are really great 'chilling out' sort of music and fitted in with that restaurant's decor and ambience so well.

The food was amazingly well presented and we plan to go back again soon!

Oh for the record we had 2 entrees/appetizers, 2 mains, 1 freshly squeezed juice (apple, carrot, pineapple and honey - amazing) and the total cost was 262 RMB or about US$35 or AU$40. What excellent value!

Bear with me.. I will have to upload the photos later. I don't know who or how many people are reading my blog (judging by the comments basically noone and judging by clustrmaps heaps of people! ;) )

My husband also got free tickets to watch the Nine Ball game. On Sunday he was all ready to go and then at the last minute got me to read the ticket. Except that it was all in Chinese. The only parts that I could make out were to arrive half an hour before it starts (oops) and there is to be no smoking, drinking or eating inside. Since he was now late he decided not to go and just watch it on TV haha.

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Uploaded the photos as promised! Pics of the party at Bamboo Bar, Plaza 66, TMSK 66 restaurant and food