Finestre

I had a lot of doubts when I made the booking at Finestre. So much so that I made a back up reservation at Laris just in case, it was my husband's birthday after all. There's just something about eating in annex of a club which didn't sound too promising. Unfortunately I found some relatively good reviews on the net and decided to give it a go. Big mistake.

When we arrived we were greeted with stale cigarette smoke oozing out of the club entrance, even thought the place was empty at 8:30pm. The dining room is in the far corner away from the club, the two sections connected by a long corridor. We had a look at the very small menu and thought about leaving, should have done so in retrospect.

There were a number of appetizers and shared dishes on the menu. My husband's starter had parma ham and other bits. We don't even remember what they were now as the dish was just blah.

My antipasto was listed as a shared dish and it was pretty big as a result. It wasn't bad I have to say.

From the limiting selections of main course my husband tried the scallops. While they looked impressive they were cold. He sent it back and he spent a long time watching me eat while he waited.

My lobster risotto came sans risotto. What's with that? Instead I got a flatten rice cake type thing under the obviously frozen lobster. It was hard and chewy, reminded me of Lean Cuisine's prawn fettuccine or something. (Last time I had Lean Cuisine was during my uni years thankyouverymuch.)

We decided to skip dessert and head home for his ice cream birthday cake instead. All in all it was below average food and a depressing dining experience. I kept apologising and decided that I would take him some place else to make up for it.

The only good side - the damage was only RMB1300 with a bottle of wine. That's cheap for Bund places but it's still RMB1300 too much for this kind of quality.

Finestre

11/F, 15 Zhong Shan Dong Er Rd. (near Jin Ling Rd.). Shanghai. Tel: 6373-4818