KABB Bar and Grill is famous. I remember when I first join Michael Conolly’s Shanghaiexpat.com meetup party, it was in KABB in Xintiandi. I called my new friend tonight, and we decide to meet at Xintiandi, he asked: “Where to meet up in Xintiandi? How about KABB?”. He pronounced it as Cab which misled me to imagine it as a meetup in a taxi.
There are two or three places I’d propose to meet besides Starbucks. Starbucks is always the first choice if it is a casual meetup. Beside that, one is the KABB in Xintiandi and the other is the Height at Three on the Bund. Not surpisingly, KABB is full of foreign visitors or expats but seldom do I see local customers. The price on their menu is, of cause, not friendly to local customers. A can of Pepsi is 30 RMB and coffee starts from 45 RMB. But it is rated as a restaurant and bar with reasonable price and good by my foreign friends. You know the gap. Of cause, with the experience in New York, Kabb is the best restaurant with reasonable price – I agree that.
Image in courtesy of Kabb bar.
KABB is at the north part of Xintiandi. Coming out of Metro Huang Pi South Rd. Station and walk southward along the Huang Pi South Road. When you see the area of Xintiandi, enter at the Huan Pi South Rd. and Tai Cang Rd. entrance, the first bar you see will be Kabb.
Jian Shuo, you mention the url Shanghaiexpats.com, however this url doesn’t seem to point to an existing website. You probably meant http://www.shanghaiexpat.com instead, without the ‘s’ at the end.
The prizes in the bar really seem extremely high to me. I live in the Netherlands and a can of pepsi would normally be 8-10RMB in a restaurant here. I wouldn’t expect some common drink like pepsi to be so much more expensive in China.
The price in Shanghai differs a lot from place to place. For a can of Coke, if you buy from supermarket, that is 1.5RMB(20 cents US dollar). And you buy from local restaurants, those mainly treat local people, that is 5RMB or less. And you buy from normal bars, that is 10 to 15RMB. If you buy in those we call luxurious bars or restaurants, that is at least 20RMB, maybe 30RMB. Same proportion as other soft drinks and local alchohol. The imported alchohol are more expensive compared to local one. The cheapest price you can get is about 35RMB(not quite sure) for 6 bottles of Heneken in supermarket.
DAYLIGHT ROBBERY….full stop.