Buying a Special Cake in Shanghai
Each culture has its own tastes and expectations and that extends to cakes for special occasions such as birthdays and weddings. I love Chinese food, but the local bakeries often make sickly sweet cakes that are full of cream textured like shaving foam. In short, I miss the delicious bread and cakes that I used to enjoy from another life in the UK. Fortunately, Shganghai has a critical mass of internationalism and foreigners to make authentic, delicious cake making a viable niche. This post comes with a price warning that you will probably have to go to a five star hotel and pay through the nose if you want to find something really special.
Most Delicious Cake : City Supermarket at the Portman Complex (Nanjing Xi Lu) Shanghai Centre 1376, Nan Jing Rd 商城店号上海商城，Tel: (021）62150418
It has become a tradition in our household to buy each other a birthday cake from the bakery at Portman’s City Supermarket. The chocolate birthday cakes are rich and moist, but not too sickly if you eat less than three slices. The cakes are also beautifully presented. This bakery made have been some of the tastiest cakes we have ever eaten. We like them so much that we got them to make our wedding cake. A medium sized birthday cake costs about 400 RMB.
Best Looking Cakes: Bakery at the Westin (Yanan Dong Lu, Henan Zhong Lu)
Bund Center, 88 Henan Central Road, Shanghai, Shanghai 200002, China, Tel: (021) 6335 1888
The Westin’s Sunday brunches are expensive and tacky, but their bakery produces beautiful birthday cakes. This is a clean family friendly site, so I am not going to describe or put up a picture of our friend’s recent cake except to say that it is too racy to show to children. It did make us smile and gave me the idea for Jenny’s recent birthday cake: pair of juicy lips. Underneath the red icing is a very sweet chocolate cheese cake. It also tastes really good, but it’s just a little too rich to be able to eat three slices. After managing two, I was glued to the sofa for most of the weekend, too paralysed with chocolate cake to move! Prices are similar to the Portman. Send a text message to Guanxi (85880) for the address in Chinese.