Shanghai's pho market is saturated, soaked in weak beef broths perfumed with star anise and imminent failure. Or is it?

I never buy the argument that Shanghai's other markets are saturated and overcrowded. There is always -- always! -- room for quality, regardless of the actual number of any one type of restaurant. In fact, there exists in Shanghai a gaping hole for it. The quality vacuum includes Vietnamese food as well.

That's where the new Pho Season is heading, though I have no idea how earnest they are in saying that -- they don't open until Monday. But they will be charging 48rmb for a bowl of the Vietnamese noodle soup, the priciest in town, and the owner, Ly Heng (of French restaurant Nova, across the street) relayed a story about sending back the chef from Saigon for using instant soup bases, tons of MSG, and too much sugar. Instead, he's already replaced the Vietnamese-Vietnamese chef with a French-Vietnamese chef, from Paris, and says Pho Season will make "the most authentic" bowl in town, using Qingdao beef and primarily imported ingredients. (No meatballs or tripe, though.)

There will only be one bowl of pho on the menu, actually, despite the pho-centric name. The rest of the menu spans banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich, com tam, the "broken rice" family of dishes, bun bo, and other cold noodle dishes, fresh spring rolls, etc. Ly is going for "Vietnamese in the style of Paris's Chinatown." Apparently, some people know what that means. Dinner for one under 100rmb, opens on Monday, March 22.

Pho Season, here's your SmSh listing, with address and a map.

Spain wins. Stop the Expo. It's over before it started.

I've just come across the list of chefs who Spain will be bringing to Shanghai as part of its extended cultural program. It's unbelievable, except it's confirmed. Shanghai -- or, really, anywhere -- hasn't seen anything like this before. The complete list represents 45 Michelin stars.

Holy hell.

These guys are going to be cooking at the Gran Melia, the new Cuban five-star hotel in Pudong (more here), over the course of six months. It's part of an extended cultural program organized / funded / hosted by the Spanish Pavilion, highlighting a different region of Spain every week, and pairing up the Spanish chef with an int'l chef whose cooking is somewhat related. It's nice because, while these dinners aren't going to be cheap, at least you don't have to pay the 150rmb entrance to Expo, on top of dinner, as at the other pavilions. And they're open to the public.

So, who's lined up for this thing? Well, the highlight is the series of Basque country dinners, when you'll have Pedro Subijana, Juan María Arzak, Andoni Adúriz, and Martín Berasategui all in the kitchen for six days.

That is ridiculous.

Three of the four have three Michelin star restaurants; Adúriz is a younger guy, and his place, Mugaritz, has two stars. They're all legendary chefs, and their visit will be aimed at promoting the Basque Culinary Center, a kind of hi-tech research & gastronomy center, but, it goes without saying that a visit from every single chef on the list, Spanish and not, would be worth getting excited about.

Full list after the jump.

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The Jue Festival steam rolls everything this weekend, and with Trippple Nippple and Optimo both on for Friday, it's arguably the biggest night of the whole affair.

We would, however, humbly remind you that the dramatic arts portion of the festival -- 5th Wall's A Taste of Red -- is also happening this weekend, with Saturday and Sunday performances at River South Arts Center.

The gist:

"A Taste of Red is a multi-media performance installation through which a story is told. Utilising synaesthesia as a structural theme (in which multiple senses are triggered as an audience experience), the narrative of the last moments of a woman’s life is juxtaposed against the narrative of a rapidly changing city."

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Word comes in today from the insiders at bar industry magazine Drink that Bar Constellation is adding a third location (or fourth, if you count the owner's wife's bar). This info is in Drink's March issue, which will be showing up in the hands of your local bartender this week. Constellation #3 -- no word if it's going to hew closer to Formula #1 or Formula #2 in size, decor -- is going in "next to Napa Wine Bar & Kitchen" (who recently got a new chef), near People's Square. That should be Jiangyin Lu, which, I've found out this morning is also the cross street for this Urban 18 downtown indoor golf project. And a new Wagas, but no one's counting those anymore.

Anyway, Constellation Number Three is going to focus on bourbon, a fine, fine spirit. Number two will remain single-malted, and number one will focus on exposing all the lint on your shirt via their blacklight. .. read on »