City Diner 城市小馆
146 Tongren Lu,
Nanjing Xi Lu
near Nanjing Xi Lu, Metro Line 2 Jing'an Temple Stop
铜仁路146号
近南京西路, 地铁2号线静安寺路站
6289-3699
Open 24H
Price Y100-Y199 per couple
Accepts International Credit Cards
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- City Weekend
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This greasy spoon churns out super-sized portions 24 hours a day. Some love it, others hate it, but either way, along the Tongren strip, it’s a solid bet for late night Western snacks and energizing breakfasts. Try Dad's Steak Sandwich or a mac and cheese that occasionally smacks of grandma's kitchen.
Reviews Been there? Add a review!
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City Diner... My husband and I had heard good things about the City Diner so we went to the new one on Hongmei Lu for lunch this weekend. We had just finished our meal when we heard that dreadful noise that precedes spitting that I loathe so much and am subjected to numerous times on a daily basis. We heard the same noise recently at another restaurant on Hongmei, but it turned out to be the cappuccino machine; we breathed a sigh of relief! This time... not so! The young man manning the counter was the culprit (spitting followed the noise, by the way). Another family had just sat down and ordered (he appeared to be American and she, Chinese, with their two teenage children). In fluent Chinese he admonished the young man and they walked out. We would have too, had we not already eaten. I do not understand how someone working in a restaurant would not know this is unsanitary, disgusting, inexcusable, and bad for business! I have also witnessed this same behavior from shoppers in the Carrefour (spitting directly on the floor) and from someone working behind the meat counter at The Pines Market. I don't go there anymore, either. What needs to happen before this habit becomes something that occurs in private and not on the streets and in the public buildings of Shanghai? Becky Blair
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Were looking forward to a pleasant Sunday dinner at the Tongren Lu branch but instead had a wholly stressful night, care of the most outrageously rude restaurant manager we've ever encountered. When they first opened, the bad service was excusable. But that night's experience was unforgiveable. Their service, especially the attitude of their manager, was outrageous. Earlier, raised voices were already heard from the table next to us. The manager turned antagonistic instead of trying to placate the customers, and was only subdued because the unhappy customers let loose a stream of admonishings in Chinese. He then turned to his staff and yelled at them, in front of the whole restaurant to see. One of the waiters then turned around and started going about his job, loudly banging plates and clanging utensils, mad that he was scolded. We don't know what the manager was trying to do, but clearly he had no idea what running a restaurant and being in the customer service industry means. You do not raise your voices at customers or dress down your staff in front of customers. The bad service continued: one of our party's order wasn't taken down, a plastic container that was dropped on their dirty, sticky floor was promptly picked up to hold the unfinished burger I wanted to take home. A bit later, the music was turned up to an uncomfortably loud volume level. Our polite requests to turn it down were ignored. They would turn it down for a couple of seconds and bring it up again. We had had enough, and billed out. I presented my Enjoy coupon that said to "enjoy any one of our delicious burgers for RMB10", and was then rudely informed by the manager that I could only use it for a City Burger. I reasoned out that nowhere on the coupon did it say I could only use it for the City Burger. The manager turned antagonistic and started to raise his voice. We got pissed off by being treated that way, and the monster of a manager just gives us a flat look and said, "Ting bu dong." When asked to be put in touch with HIS manager, and was loudly informed that "mei ban fa", he didn't have their number. He then said that we didn't need to get in touch with his laoban, because he feels he can handle everything that might come up. How can you manage an American restaurant geared for expats without understanding rudimentary English??? We stood up to leave, and the cherry on the sundae was the manager giving us a shrug of the shoulders and a smug, spiteful look, as if to say sorry, we couldn't do anything about his outrageous behavior. To further anatagonize the situation, he began loudly talking on his cellphone in Chinese, relaying the events of the night to someoene we presume is his laoban. UNBELIEVABLE. I hope this comment gets read by the upper management of The City Diner, because you have to do something about that cretin who's in charge, or else he'll be running the place to the ground.
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2 words: Never Again.
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Went for a Saturday morning breakfast with my wife, and the food was pretty decent and the servings large.
My complaint came when a group of five or six drunk laowai came in and started demanding to be allowed to smoke. First the staff agreed, even giving them an ashtray. Then about 20 minutes later someone else (the manager, maybe?) came over and started yelling, saying that they couldn't smoke.
I could care less if people are allowed to smoke, but the argument that ensued just ruined the atmosphere of the morning. If the staff had just been consistent in the first place (or if the laowai had just gone outside to smoke like decent people) I think it all could have been avoided.
I probably won't be back.
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decent food if you can ignore the environment.
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waiters suck.. they're not attentive, they don't attend to customers' needs and now they HIT customers!!.. with fire extinguisher!!.. those customers are my friends, they all went out of the restaurant covered with blood and all admitted to hospitals. One of them needs 5 stitches on his forehead!
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The review above generated several user comments. As this page is dedicated to a restaurant listing, we have moved ALL of the response-comments to the following blog article, Can anyone explain what's going on at City Diner?. If you would like to comment further on the thread, please do so on the blog article. If you would like to submit a "Review" of the restaurant, City Diner, you can do so below. If you have any questions, please feel free to use the City Weekend Reader Feedback Form and contact us further.
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1st, Food is great! The salmon wt scrambled eggs is fantastic and the blue berry pancakes is excellent! Good burgers as well. The pecan pie, cheesecake, pumpkin pie are all very good. Fantastic breakfast, brunch and lunch place. Dinner is not so exciting. 2nd, Service is sub-standard. They are good at standing around and not caring about the customers. 3rd, Cleaniness is terrible. The place is a dump! Have you noticed the floors? It is dirty and there is no effort to clean things up. I have also witness the staff dropping a customer's cheesecake on the floor, while tranferring to a take-out box. Without delay, he picked it up wt his hands and put it into the take out box, and then give it to the customer in the "nice" paper bag... SCARY....
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when they first open..the service is considered as GOOD in shanghai..after two three months..these waiter/waiteress tend to avoid your call...some wit bad attitude..
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My FIRST and LAST time at City Diner was absolutely atrocious. We were left waiting for more than one hour for a simple order of French fries! Completely fed up with the lack of service, we complained to the waiter and paid only for what we were served. As we got outside, I noticed that the waiter had followed us out onto the street. In an angry and arrogant tone, he yelled: "ANY MORE PROBLEM? NO? GOOD! THEN GO!" Stunned by such rudeness, I just stood there as he stormed back into the restaurant and slammed the door behind him. Seeing us still outside, the waiter storms outside again and continues to confront us: "STILL HERE? ANOTHER PROBLEM?" Having lived in Shanghai for almost 2 years, I have never experienced such HORRIFIC treatment before at a restaurant. First they cannot even take care of a simple order. Then they are completely unable to take care of the situation, instead choosing to attack the customer. If this is how City Diner trains its staff, then all I can say is this: MOON RIVER.
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blair ... hmm ... I understand your frustration. This seems to be a recurring theme, though I'm surprised to hear about such an unprovoked confrontational attitude. It's unfortunate that the city's only 24-hour restaurant is plagued by such problems which, after a quick skim of the comments on this site, appear to have been continuing for quite some time. Servers with the kind of attitude you've mentioned, well ... there's really only one thing to be done there. F&B service and aggressive tendencies are, intrinsically, mutually exclusive.
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Few of my colleagues wanted to see and compare the food here and Moon River, so they force me to follow coz I was reluctant to go since I heard about some customers got bitten up by city diner’s waiters & chefs.
Their food was still no improvement, when 1st brought out the burger it was serve in a mess, when asked for extra cheese the waiter was kinda pissed off (eventho its not a free cheese). Salad was not fresh, felt like it was kept in the fridge for too long.
Poor service, fast food taste, place is dirty, bad food presentation, and definitely not coming back for good.
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The food is half decent, although the portions seem to be getting smaller and the staff surlier. If you're looking for the best gourmet burger in town then you should be looking elsewhere. That's not what this place is about though, the key thing here is that it's 24 hours. Until Shanghai gets itself a chippy, this is one of the few decent places to go for drunk food after a night out
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Hmm apparentley there has been a lot of havoc going on at City Diner before I went, according to the reviews on top that I read. Anyway, I was there just last week and had no problems with the service like the ones written here. Fortunately, on my visit, around 8:30 p.m., service was fast and cordial, and my burguer was big, juicy and my fries and honey sauce were also great. Dessert was also good both in size and taste, so from my visit I would recommend it. Good environment and good tunes too.
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hey guys, what's wrong with you? where were you? i didn't use to write review but i've heard only good things about the city diner and i ate there several times and there wasn't any problem. food is great and quite big (burger is my favorite). good sandwich as well. yelling waiter? sorry but i can hardly believe. if you are there at evening you can enjoy live music too. i would recommend it!
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Tired of chinese food, ma? (After one year spent around oily chao mian and garlic jiaozi, it could happens, nobody can deny it!)Well, there is a place in Shanghai where breakfast, lunch, and dinner are always western-taste and delicious: The City Diner. Splitted in 2 floors plus VIP room, offers downstairs a pub-likely environment where almost every night you can enjoy live music, no matter if blues, punk or rock. Upstairs turns out like a on-the-road american restaurant dressed with red sofas and big brighty windows. The atmosphere you can breath there is more then familiar as when the sun comes up and the clubs turn off their lights, it is still there to welcome us. The first time I got there was at 4AM on a sunday. I went for a City Breakfast with scrambled eggs served on a baguette and sided with green salad and tomatoes, the perfect combination to make my upset stomach feel good! Now, I know what you're thinking, when you're drunk you could eat everything, that's why I decided to give it another shot (in a sober situation and with a sober friend), this time for dinner. We remember we stared at the menu for 20 minutes rolling our eyes from the Burgers, to the sandwiches to the starters and then to the Burgers again. Everything looked amazing! Finally we ordered a Hey Vinnie! and a Sweet & Vicious plus coke and Guinness (sounds perfect, isn't it?) and perfect it was, surrounded by french fries, asparagus and a nice little salad. Ketchup and mayonnaise of course! Since that time, going to "The Amazing Things" as we used to call it, became an almost fixed weekly rendez-vous also because of the several concerts on the first floor. Therefore, what else could we say?? Two in one, both amazing!
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Hey, went to City Diner tonight, 1/16/2009 - a friday night, and it was closed. No lights on. What gives?
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It's true, service is veryyyy slow and unattentive, but I think food is OK for the price. Bagels, salads and burgers have always worked for me, even if I was not having a 4-am-drunk-meal !
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No No and another NO. I don't care if Eduardo is still involved there or not, the lunch was lousy and i will NOT (yes, mark my words) return there unless they have another GRAND OPENING. Thanks also to Enjoy, who's 10Kuai Burger voucher i used for this experiment. I was a big (sic) fan of this place. And CD was always well crowded for lunch. Today..even at 12:30 easy to get a window seat. or 6. The burger arrived rather fast, ad looked promising- like burgers do. No condiments were served with it (they used to give you these small boxes with all kind of sauces, mustard and such). But even mustard did not save the day. Taste of the meat was bland. It stood no chance next to the toasted bun and onion. I remember CD for great value for money. It was WELL worth 10 Kuai today. Even though the pale scarce and soggy (my guess is reheated) french fries seemed to be in need of sunshine more than me. One word will suffice to discribe the shotglass full of coleslaw.."sad". Whoever runs this place: get a GRIP. There are tons of lunch options around and i will be found there next time, not CD. The best of this lunch was the free wifi.'nuff said.
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Loved it! Went with my sister and her kids this past Sunday. We were pleasantly surprised to find that kids eat free on weekends. They were also passing out some awesome cinnamon buns! Will definitely be back soon!
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went there around 3am in a group on a recent weekend. none of us enjoyed our food. burger was tasteless and texture awful. asked for medium cooked and it returned well done and super dry. dip was wrong and the coleslaw was poor and stingy. the biscuits with gravy didnt seem like biscuits at all, more like soggy bread. service was poor. tried to order water 5 times (from 5 different waiters including the manager) for the whole group from the moment we arrived until we left.
worst experience for food and service in shanghai so far. i will not eat there again - even for free! there is obviously demand/potential given the crowds but the place is just poor, poor, poor.
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What used to be a mainstay has now turned into a a stay away. But seriously this used to be a great place. What happened? Have the owners tossed it to the side in order to focus on their new culinary endeavors? Last month I decided I wanted to return to an old favorite. After watching two other tables fight over the bill and lousy service I wasn't sure if I had remembered the same place. After reviewing the menu I was at least a little pacified that the menu hadn't changed much from it's traditional American fair. Then came the problem of actually getting the waitresses to take the order, serve the order, and bring the bill. Not to mention everything ordinary in between. Hoping this was a once off I gathered a bit of courage and returned to City Dinner this past weekend. At least this time everyone seemed to be happy and there were new waitresses to boot. However, my smile soon turned into a frown when my order was served up wrong. The waitress called it by its proper name but that's not what was on the plate. After waiting another 15 minutes for my gf's food to come (ordered at the same time and a lot easier to cook) we were able to eat. Funny enough, it seemed that when more than five computers were using the internet that day everyone started giving each other the "is your internet going unbearably slow too?" look. To make matters worse my "bottomless" lemonade was only bottomless when I got off my bottom and went to retrieve my glass of lemonade from the waitress who forgot to bring it back. Rest assured I think next time I'll be sitting down at one of the other restaurants in the vicinity. Too bad too...City Dinner has a nice ring to it and used to have food and service you could depend on.
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The place has cleaned up a bit. At least the dirty floors are cleaner now and they solved the dirty tables problem by lining it with paper and crayons so that you can amuse yourself.
The service has improved with the Filipina staff. They have a better understanding of service with a smile and how food should be served.
The honey banana pancakes was mushy, artificial-tasting, and ugly. Yes, it was ugly-looking and I struggled to pick it up with my fork. The filipina staff asked me if I wanted "home-made" chicken pie warmed up and I was looking forward to it. Then it arrived rock cold and she proceeded to radiated it to death in the microwave. It came back, chicken was cardboard-dry, the peas was almost yellowed, and the crust has this oily bubbles all over it. The food is sad...
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I had just come back to Shanghai after a 2 year stint in Beijing. Let me just say - this place rots.
Beijing has Steak N Eggs and Grandma's Kitchen. Both pretty authentic diner food. This place? Should be shut down. Service was terrible too.
The food at this place was very blah. I'll never be back. Some one tell me if there's a real American style grease joint in Shanghai, because I get a hankering some times. Hooters comes the closest (damn, they make a good burger, though everything is relative and that comment will seem silly when Fatburger finally comes to Shanghai).
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A great place for Homesick Americans The City Diner really reminds me of every diner I grew up with in the US, and this can be wondeful when you tire of xiaolong bao. I personally was craving bisquits and gravy which was pretty good. This restaurant also has internet access.