香港六合彩资料网

There鈥檚 little to differentiate the spread at La Rue from many other mid-tier hotel brunches. Sushi, sashimi sliced to order, a station that will whip or fry you up omelets or any variety of egg you can fathom. A dessert table with a mandatory chocolate fountain, salad bar, cereals, cold cuts, cheese. Check. Check. Check.

There鈥檚 also a carvery with lamb chops, sirloin steak, burgers and roast chicken, plus king prawns, scallop, salmon and sea bass grilled to order. The sirloin and lamb, pleasantly pink inside and drizzled with a red wine sauce, is certainly the highlight.

The dining room is a little dowdy. The service is friendly but vague. And no alcohol is included in the 239rmb tariff. So why go here, when easily a dozen other places offer the same thing? The real plus point is the grounds. The Ruijin Intercontinental takes up a sprawling and verdant oasis of nature and history right in the center of downtown Shanghai. Originally the estate of a British publishing mogul, the houses and grounds date back to 1924. Chang Kai Shek was an early visitor and proposed to Soong Mei-ling on the grounds, then took the whole place over after the war and lived here until the Communists nabbed it in 1949 and handed it to the mayor of Shanghai.

While many of the buildings are new, the grounds retain a remarkable sense of history and many of the trees -- beautiful things that look clipped from a Chinese landscape painting -- are well over a century old. Despite sitting on one of the busiest thoroughfares in Shanghai, the serenity is total. It鈥檚 like strolling through a meticulously kept, empty park. Of course, you don鈥檛 have to eat the brunch to enjoy the grounds. You could just march in, nose in the air, and have a wander. But if you do book for brunch, arrive an hour early, and work up a hunger with a stroll through the trees.

Sat-Sun, 11am-3pm

Bacco鈥檚 more of a dinner place but makes a chilled spot for some midday gorging. The focus is on seafood and expensive cuts of meat: Wagyu carpaccio, filet mignon, lobster, brown crab, Gillardeau oysters, ark shell clams. All of that comes at a predictable premium (seafood platters are 598rmb or 888rmb), but the menu has some pasta and risotto options that hover around 80-120rmb. The walls are lined with wine and diners are encouraged to browse and pick what they like. It being breakfast time, we went instead for an Aperol Spritz 鈥淭ommy style鈥�, which meant an extra shot of grappa. That in hand, we ordered a foie gras terrine as an appetizer (148rmb), followed by spaghetti al ossobuco -- slow braised veal shanks cooked for 10 hours (108rmb).

The spaghetti arrived first, which caused some concern. Foie gras terrines are pre-cooked and require almost no preparation, so why was the kitchen sending out the pasta first? The staff took it away after some explaining and then had a long, loud, but good-natured conversation among themselves about laowai food and its peculiar regime of serving certain dishes before others. Like at many Italian places in Shanghai, Bacco鈥檚 owners may have gone loud and splashy with big-name cuts of meat and imported seafood, but unfortunately they鈥檝e scrimped on the service.

鈥═hat said, when the foie gras arrived, it was great. Paired with crushed pistachios and a red pear puree, the terrine was creamy without the oiliness that sometimes ruins the dish. It was only let down by the simplest thing to get right -- the bread with which it was served. It came with only two needle-thin breadsticks, utterly unsuited to eating a pat茅. We were eager to see whether they would re-serve the osso buco that had been brought out earlier. To the kitchen鈥檚 credit, they had cooked the pasta from scratch again, and it was pretty good. The veal was tender and rich, and augmented by tender chunks of collagen-rich tendon -- a slightly small serving, but lots of flavor.

Bacco has a late dinner menu from 10pm with some Italian cold cuts, bruschetta, a mussel stew and a rustic, roasted chicken thigh with crushed potatoes. We imagine in the evening, when the place is humming and there鈥檚 a bit more wine flowing, it might come to life. This visit was a little patchy, with good food let down by small details and spotty service.

Sat-Sun, 11am-4pm

There was a time when Whampoa Club was hailed as the standard bearer for modern Shanghai Cuisine. That was largely thanks to Chef Jereme Leung, who left in 2009 to start his own consultancy business. Ever since then, Whampoa has done little of interest to diners other than being located at Three on the Bund. Today it's overshadowed by neighbors like Mercato and Unico. Perhaps Whampoa Club's weekend dim sum brunch will provide some clue as to why.

With the exception of Cantonese dim sum staples like har gau, egg tarts, and sweet and sour chicken, offerings skew Shanghainese. There are regional favorites like xiaolongbao, Shanghai-style smoked fish, and yan du xian, a light, salty soup made with salted pork and bamboo shoots. The food is fine -- nothing remarkable, certainly nothing you'd trek to the Bund for, but if you were already in the neighborhood, 158rmb is reasonable enough for all-you-can-eat dim sim.

鈥�That is, provided the kitchen can be bothered to cook it for you and the wait staff can be bothered to bring it to you.

We were tucked away in a corner and were all but forgotten. We ordered a Bloody Mary. Our server walked off only to return empty handed, saying, "Meiyou," which we're pretty sure is Mandarin for, "No one in this restaurant has known how to make that drink for years, and we never bothered to take it off the menu." Brunch dragged on for two and a half hours as single dishes arrived at the table at interminable intervals, some arriving twice, others not at all. Meanwhile, it appeared as if every other table around us that opted for Whampoa's conventional -- and presumably more expensive -- a la carte menu seemed to enjoy more prompt service.

We've grown accustomed to the lower standards of service that seem to plague so many restaurants, and under most circumstances, we would probably have let most of this slide. But here is the thing: Whampoa Club tacks an automatic 10 percent charge onto your bill, ostensibly for "service".

We don't know if the servers see even one kuai of this percentage. We'd guess they don't, but that's beside the point. If you're going to charge for "service", then provide it. Otherwise, please just end this charade and raise your prices by 10 percent.

Sat鈥揝un: 11.30am鈥�2.30pm