(City Weekend)
Updated: 2007-12-21 11:00

Lounge 18 is an open yet oddly disjointed upscale lounge in the only place for an upscale lounge–the Bund.

A whimsical mix of furniture styles from comfortable lounge chairs and caged candles to a digitized reproduction of Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" leads you to wonder if the venue was decorated by committee. Although most of the basic drinks are covered, there are some holes in the drink menu (like having only one single malt scotch).

If you want wine, you can either drink a first growth Bordeaux for thousands of renminbi or Jacob's Creek for a few hundred. In all fairness though, they're still building up their inventory. The specialty cocktail list offered one intriguing selection: the Ylang-Ylang(¥68), a mix of gin, fresh mint, vanilla and fruit juices. Quite tasty, but why garnish the rim of the glass with black pepper?

Black pepper aside, the wait staff were attentive and all smiles which was a welcome change from the pretension that so abounds in bars on the Bund.

Lounge 18
Location: 4/F, 18 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu near Nanjing Dong Lu
Tel: 021-6323-8399 (reservation)