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[On The Radar]: Midnight Burger, Both Music

Two new ones coming from the local scene. Here's a look at the new homes for late night burgers and fashionable vinyl enthusiasts.
Last updated: 2017-09-20
On the Radar is a SmartShanghai column profiling new restaurants, bars, and other new places we find interesting. Sometimes we stumble upon these places, and sometimes we are invited, but in both cases, we are never paid to write an opinion, rather, these are our honest first impressions, and not a formal review.

On The Radar is a weekly SmartShanghai column where we profile new venues that you might like to know about. Here are the facts and our first impressions.

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Two new ones for scene kids: Midnight Burger and Both Music open their new locations.

Midnight Burger

Midnight

Quick Take: The hip-hop tinged, late-opening burger bar has moved into new digs down the street from ALL and Kartel. Still exceptionally dope burgers, surrounded by odder culinary knickknacks.

What It Is: Do you like hip hop? Do you like concrete industrial chic? Need a midnight snack before Le Baron? Do you like burgers?

Currently run by, among others, a pair of Taiwanese dudes, Midnight Burger has been this comparatively low-key terrific burger venture for while. Here's Midnight Burger's rapsheet in summary: 5 years a food-van outside Hollywood; 1 year a niche streetfront on Huashan Lu; as of last week, a brand new space on Xiangyang and Changle Lu, right in the heart of the city.

Midnight

They've taken over a corner spot that used to be maybe four things in the last two years. Last one was something pasta related? Midnight Burger said they brought in a feng shui master to deal with the bad joojoo. They've turned it into a brightly lit, exposed-concrete-looking, Kendrick Lamar-blasting, diner-booth-having, burger-making ode to edible things in buns.

Midnight

The menu's more ambitious than the previous ten instances of the word "burger" makes it sound. Appetizers include Truffle Fries (38rmb), Cloud Egg (48rmb) (like a fluffed-up fried egg on croutons), and Spinach with Almond & Cranberry (68rmb). Yeah. They've got a Chef Special Carbonara with Mentaiko (108rmb) on there.

Midnight

Calamari Midnight Style (48rmb)

But the highlight of the menu is definitely the stuff between the bread. The eponymous burgers come in beef, chicken, vegetarian (48rmb) and fish fillet (88rmb) varieties. They're simple; lettuce, tomato, onion, the basics. Add an egg, if you like, but there's no home-made pickle or artisanal horseradish on these. There's also the Elvis Sandwich (58rmb, set to go down to 48rmb). It's a double-stacked bacon, peanut butter and banana on white toast, with some salad sprinkled in to cover up the fact it probably killed the man. That and the drugs.

Midnight

Kingslayer

Prices will be edging down soon, according to the owners, and they say new dishes are on their way. They're toying with making their weekend-only brunches into a week-long thing instead. Meanwhile, it's 20% until September 22, with a raft of promotions set to come in. Oh, and they're staying open until at least 2am. You heard that right, neighborhood club kids.

First Impressions: Holy shit, those beef burgers are good. They were always good. Chicken burger and vegetarian are okay, but man that beef burger. Contender for top spot on 5 Best Burgers In Shanghai You Probably Don't Know About. I'm going to go have one right now.

Midnight

Midnight Beef Burger (48rmb)

Back. Checked again and, yeah, the menu is odd. Solid, simple burger, next to spinach, almond and cranberry. Carbonara next to Mexican Beef Spring Rolls (58rmb). I was pleasantly surprised by the calamari. I think Midnight Burger's operating on the principle of "have a solid burger and you can play whatever merry hell you want with the rest of the menu." Mostly it works. That Elvis sandwich was a disturbingly tasty, gut-destroying ordeal. I kind of want another one, along with a perm, a jumpsuit and a crippling addiction to demerol.

Go for the burger. Keep going for the burger. Maybe you think the burger gets boring after a while, without a double-bacon BBQ sauce option or a durrian souffle add-on option available. If you get bored of the burger, the rest of the menu is intriguing enough to cleanse your palette, so you can continue having more burgers later.

- Alex Panayotopoulos

Both

Both

Quick Take:Former Red Town scenester kids hangout Both Music finds a new home in Jing'an. Back to the business of coffee, indie fashion, and records.

Both
Both
Both

What It Is: A little homegrown oasis of music and fashion in among the interchangeable coffee chains in town. Both Music started out with the same coffee-plus-clothes-plus-vinyl concept back in 2015 in the Red Town area, and was also swept aside, earlier this year, with On Stage and a few others, when the property owners re-purposed the area to... well, something more profitable. Probably office spaces. It's still under construction. But yeah, probably office spaces. You're dead to us, Red Town.

Both Music have moved across town to Yuyuan Lu and Zhenning Lu, into a recently re-furbed complex that also includes creative offices and the like. It's clean, sleek, minimal -- very contemporary Shanghai. The coffee shop now occupies a (slightly smaller) indoor space and a nice looking patio seating area in the Jing'an district. yeah, they sell coffee, beer, wine, a few pastries, and a few indie fashion brands in a space that looks like the lobby area of a very fancy design firm. It's a Shanghai scene kids hangout so it's... still really expensive for clothes and shoes. Generally, it's a lot of deconstructed minimalist black, white, and gray pieces -- bags, tops, bottoms, accessories, and shoes -- from cote & ciel, S.S.S.R., Domrebel, Maison Flaneur, and Both themselves. They look like someone took a bunch of art canvases and made clothes out of them. Checking the price tag... yeah, it's like several thousand RMB for anything. Moving on!

They're brought their vinyl over, which is hip hop, funk, disco, jazz, classical. But none of it is for sale. More display and for playing in-house. And also to wear their allegiances on their sleeve, which is to Shanghai's vinyl and underground music scene. The kids here are the same you might run into at Elevator, Basement6, or ALL. It's like the more low-key, daytime coffee shop hangout for that crowd.

Both

First Impressions: It's a cool store. And it's super nice. Real chic but still approachable. Definitely a welcome addition to Shanghai's small collection of underground arts and music spaces. Prices for the rich kid fashion are sky-high but drinks are reasonable, the coffee is fine, and it's a nice layout -- inside plus patio -- in which to enjoy some music. They're opening this weekend with a a big to-do with Shanghai's favorite vinyl defenders, Daily Vinyl. Details here.

-Morgan Short

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