An evening of cabaret at Chinatown in Shanghai

Chinatown fills a niche for evening entertainment. It's a great idea that is hopefully being improved upon with every performance. The night we went, the performance fell rather flat. But we still enjoyed it - mostly. I want it to succeed because Shanghai needs this type of thing rather badly as there's not much besides bars and DJ clubs for after-dinner entertainment. Happily, it's reported the show is changed up rather often so you won't see the same performance every night. So go with friends, hit the bar and enjoy the show. If nothing else, it's something different to do.

This venue is currently closed.

Shanghai is a city full of gorgeous restaurants from Bund waterfront dining to old villa opulence. For after-dinner entertainment you can head to the top of any number of the city's skyscraper hotels for fancy drinks or find the coolest club with the newest import DJ. A few great music venues dot the city (like JZ) but there really isn't much on the scene for after-dinner entertainment. Gosney & Kallman's Chinatown has filled a much-needed niche in this fast-developing city for unique entertainment that combines cocktails, music and a show.

It's a little tricky to find. The Hongkou area (north of the Bund) is under serious development (as is all of Shanghai, seemingly) and located on a small one-way street, our cab driver meandered. After leaving dinner at M on the Bund late, we were worried that we'd miss part of the show - set to start at 10:30pm. We did finally find the place - set in a renovated Buddhist Temple, the understated signage and folks hanging around the entrance gave it an air of mystery. Go ahead and snicker, but for us, with a toddler at home and my being - at the time - 8 months pregnant, mystery was exciting.

The interior of the club is fantastically done - and just how you'd expect it to be. It's dark and smoky (lots of cigars on the decidedly phallic-ly influenced menu), everything covered in dark wood and red velvet. There's a long bar where a very talented bar-man mixes whatever you want (or choose from the lengthy cocktail menu), deep booths and chairs and tables on the floor. Upstairs you'll find private boxes for you VIP-types. The service was grand. And that's saying something in this city where often clubs and restaurants have "soft openings" for a year so they can train staff. We wanted for nothing and after we'd settled in (Perrier for me, G&T for him), we were ready to see the show. It was 10:45 after all and with a small kid at home and one on the way, well, sadly, that was late for us.

Another Perrier and G&T later the show finally started. I was already annoyed by this time (I came for a show!) and the MC annoyed me even more. He was supposed to be funny and insinuate all kinds of naughty things (this is a burlesque show, after all) but we found his jokes to be rather over-the-top and his performance too long (I came for the show!). When they finally let the performers on, they shined. The "Chinatown Dolls" - a group of 8 scantily-clad young ladies who are quite good at dancing and singing - were fabulous: when they were on. They didn't seem to be on very much. Frank Bray, a singer with a voice so reminiscent of Frank Sinatra you could close your eyes and think you were listening to that Frank, absolutely stole the show. The band that performed in between sets wasn't bad. But there were so many sets - and the MC coming on and talking at us incessantly (we came for the show!) just got long and boring. We ended up leaving before the final performance at past 1am.