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tristamarie

You truly feel like you've walked into an artist's commune when you stroll through the quaint alleys of Taikang Lu. Amidst this setting, Bohemia lives up to its name, offering a friendly and hip locale for coffee-sipping, catching up on emails, people-watching, chatting with strangers, chilling with friends, or any of the like. I got stuck in the rain once and hung out comfortably here for two hours, weathering the storm. The staff are friendly and, incidentally, the smoked salmon salad is particularly tasty. Props to Anna and Felicity, the ladies behind the scenes, for creating such a neat escape in a city in need of cool hide-outs.

 

12 months ago

alex80

My girlfriend loves this place and finally dragged me there last saturday. I was quite hungover and not really in the mood to go anywhere but their breakfast helped me out, nothing like bacon to cure a hangover. Had to wait a little while for the food but it was great and worth the wait. Everything tasted freshly cooked, best scrambled eggs i have had in ages. Staff spoke great English and were really friendly which was also a surprise for such a small place.

 

6 months, 2 weeks ago

zimbu

Review: Bohemia Cafe and Bar

I guess the most distinctive thing to note about this place is its location: down the same alley as well-known Kommune (off of Taikang Road).

The good news is that this is an authentic version of what Xin Tian Di is trying to imitate. But whereas Xin Tian Di is a nearly 99% artificial rebuild of "something like" an old nong tang Shanghai-style housing area, this Taikang alley is the real thing.

Much smaller in scale than the its fake offspring, this alley is really a mixture of the new and old. On the old side, you have cramped little houses made out of brick and featuring the famous "lao hu chuang" Shanghai-style window architecture (bet you didn't know that "lao hu chuang" is pronounced "lo hu cang" in Shanghainese and the origin of this phrase is...English: "roof window". Class dismissed.)

Another old-style thing in this alley is the lack of toilets in the houses. So the residents, to this day, still "poop in the bucket" (not to be confused with fast food chain, Jack in the Box), and then carry it by hand to the alley entrance for a daily dump (pun intended). So if you see anyone walking down the narrow alley, steaming lidded bucket in hand, give them a wide space to path.

On the new side, the alley now has lots of little restaurants and cafes that have kicked out the poor poop people and set up nice little yuppy hangouts. Some of them have maintained the original bricks etc. quite nicely, and others have tried to upgrade a little too much.

OK, now back to Bohemia:

Food: Menu items are that same sort of "iiiit" sandwich, soup, salad thing. Not exactly the same, but pretty close. Overall, the quality of the food on offer at Bohemia is not quite as good as iiit but not bad either. I ordered a chicken something sandwich and it was good and came with a nice side salad. Mrs. Zimbu had the English Breakfast which she enjoyed too. Not great great stuff, but pretty good overall. Deserts looked nice, but we did not try any. Wide range of beer choices looked even nicer, but I will have to come back to try that some evening.

Decor: They have been a bit heavy on the upgrade, rather than maintain most of the original wood and brick like the coffee place across the alley (called what? I forget). It looks nice, but it would have been better with more original stuff. Their outside tables are nice for people watching, but you can expect to get a big wiff of incense from a nearby shop which doesn't help much with your food taste. Inside tables are a little better but pretty cramped. Anyways, whatdya expect?!

Service: I have seen a couple of reviews where other people raved about the friendly staff here, but I guess the friendly ones all had the day off when I was there. They were happy to chat amongst themselves loudly in Chinese about their "plans to improve their English", but they were not very interested in the customers or recommending any specials. Even the super chatty aussie at the next table could barely get them to crack a smile.

Summary: I give this one 3 out of 5 Zimbu bananas. Definitely worth a try.

 

4 months, 1 week ago

ajhlee

Was there yesterday... shockingly bad... portions were tiny... the service was non-existent... noticed 2 other tables received the wrong order... we waited so long for ours that we ended up cancelling...chased 4 times and waited 45 minutes... the ambience is nice... but food and service leaves a lot to be desired... wouldn't go back again.

 

4 months ago