The Place
You might think reviewing restaurants is a bed of roses, but it is not without its foibles. Occasional food poisoning aside, the biggest gripe is seeing nice restaurants ruined by crap food, which more often than not is ruinously expensive too.
Our most recent encounter is Ostra, a stunning new seafood bistro just next to the Jing An Kerry Centre, which taught us more than we had expected to learn about money and how the rich spend it.
The Food
On the menu is an elite lineup of shockingly expensive seafood. And we’re not just talking the usual Shanghai markup; this is some of the most egregiously priced food we’ve ever seen in this city.
Take, for example, a salad of 5J 60-month aged Bellota jamon with arugula, which your correspondents turned down on account of its RMB420 price tag. One diner at the table next to ours wasn’t so shrewd; the look on his face when it showed up with a few fat-less pieces of jamon and iceberg lettuce was that of a man coming to terms with the whimper of true culinary apathy.
Further despair was in store in the form of bland pan-fried quail with exactly one half of a cherry tomato and a wedge of lemon (RMB180). Talk on our table turned wistfully to McDonald’s chicken nuggets, seasoned, crispy skinned little buggers they are.
We held out a faint beacon of hope that seafood would prove better, quickly extinguished by the presence of baked fresh Boston lobster with Champagne butter sauce (RMB420). It looked like it had spent the night partying at Lola and ended up passed out on its couch covered with a thick blanket of cheese vomit. Flavor-wise it had all the bitterness of a Shanghai expat who’s stayed just a little too long.
We realize, all too late, that Ostra is where expensive jaded seafood comes to die. RMB380 is a lot to pay for spaghetti, no? Even when it comes with a fancy red Spanish carabinero shrimp on top, this was taking the piss. We questioned who in Shanghai has so much money that they can waste it on food so very bad, especially when there are so many other expensive restaurants to choose from. People who dine in the private rooms of Ostra is the answer.
Food verdict: 0.5/3
The Vibe
The thing about restaurants like this is that only the super rich are willing to overlook how awful the food is. And this isn’t a uniquely Shanghai phenomenon – the secret of many of the world’s chicest restaurants is that their food is extremely subpar, a formula that works provided it is glamorous and visited by the right kinds of people.
Because when you have that kind of money, you only care about the fact that you’re eating lobster and oysters, not whether they’ve been ruined by the person who cooked them.
Vibe verdict: 0.5/2
Total Verdict: 1/5
Price: RMB500-1200 per person, plus 10 percent service charge
Who’s going: wealthy locals
Good for: break up dates
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