Coconut Grove Bistro

椰子林

Room 502, 5F, Henglong Plaza, No.1266 Nanjing Xilu, by Shanxi Lu, Shanghai

About this place

I try to write about restaurants that I like, because generally the locales that do not impress me much, I quickly forget. That is unless they are so bad that I can’t stop thinking about them! I found the need to write about Coconut Grove Bistro for two reasons. First, it is located in a spot where visitors and locals alike will often find themselves quite hungry. Second, despite the assumption that Plaza 66 – probably the most upscale mall in Shanghai - would and does include some trustworthy restaurants, Coconut Grove Bistro is not one of them.

It was not the service or atmosphere that made this an unpleasant experience (although they weren’t great either), the food was simply disgusting. The "spring rolls", which the menu labels as Vietnamese, were stale rice paper rolls covered in fish sauce, and stuffed with week-old, sautéed vegetables. The string beans were also covered in a fish sauce so strong it made the dish taste plain rotten. Amazingly there was no Pad Thai on the menu, but there was stir-fried noodles with shrimp that, simply put, tasted wrong. The green curry was just about the only edible dish, and one can certainly find better in Shanghai.

There are several great options for Thai cuisine in Shanghai (see Simply Thai, Lan Na Thai). If you should find yourself in Plaza 66 and starving, check out the Red Door, right next to Coconut Grove Bistro, it is 100% better.

How to get there: If you don’t know where it is, hopefully you will never come across it…

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