The cuisine of Shanghai is part of the Eastern style of cooking, where seafood, river fish and rice predominate, along with dried and spiced vegetables. The overall flavour of the food is light, somewhat sweet (thanks to the use of sugar and Shaoxing wine), with ginger used extensively. It’s not a favourite cuisine of most foreigners, but it does have some interesting dishes, especially the `dazha’ crab, available only during the winter, and reputed to be the most delicious- and therefore most expensive- of Shanghai’s dishes. 

Shanghai is good if you like eating; there’s loads of choice, both for local and regional cuisines (of which, obviously, there are endless restaurants) and for international food as well. Some of the best areas to go to are Yunnan Lu, Huanghe Lu and Shashi Xiaochi Shijie- all so-called `food streets’, with concentrations of restaurants, snack shops and roadside stalls, selling everything from hotpots and stir frys to stylish seafood dishes, bakery and confectionery. A lot of international cuisine (ranging from Vietnamese to Indian to Tex-Mex) is available in the French concession, and the advantage of eating in this area is that you’ll find most menus printed in English, and the staff that can understand English too.

If you start pining for fast food, Shanghai is one of the best places to be in China- there are outlets of major Western fast food chains every so often.

After Beijing, Shanghai is China’s most vibrant city when it comes to nightlife and entertainment; there are lots of bars (including gay and lesbian bars), discotheques and nightclubs; most of these are concentrated in Huaihai Lu area, Julu Lu and Maoming Lu. Most of the bars also serve food, and some have live bands too.

If bars and discos are not quite your cup of tea; or if you’d like something cultural, you should keep an eye on the `What’s Happening’ section of periodicals like Shanghai Pictorial and Shanghai Talk. The city usually has something interesting happening in the way of opera, drama, dances, acrobatics (including sword-swallowing and fire walking), puppetry, and ballet. The best-known venue for most of these is the Grand Theatre, but there are some other excellent places too. Best among these are the Shanghai Centre, The Grand Stage Theatre, the Shanghai Concert Hall and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Shanghai has cinemas too, but nearly all are restricted to Chinese movies. If you want to see films in English, though, you can go to cinema halls like the Shanghai Film Art Centre and the Yong Le Gong Cinema, which screen American hits and `art movies’ respectively.