One of the best things about Shanghai dining is the sheer number of restaurants. There’s always a new place opening, whether it’s another addition to the Vargas empire, a themed restaurant, or a neighborhood café. Of course, with so many places starting up, the flip side is that less successful places close down, but that’s par for the course here.

When a restaurant is down on its luck, what you often get is what I term the Tumbleweed Experience. A couple of times over the past few weeks it’s happened. On one occasion, we arrived at the (relatively new) restaurant and it was empty. A single waiter appeared. It later emerged that he was also the chef. From the look on his face it was hard to tell whether he was happy to have some work to do, or pissed because his cigarette/QQ session had been cut short. What followed was a painful half hour of watching him prepare our salads and main courses in the open kitchen. Once he’d delivered our food, he stood and watched us eat it. Not that I blame him; there was nothing else for him to do. As we ate, several couples approached the door, but decided against coming in when they saw that we were the only guests.

These days, if the restaurant is empty when I arrive, I’m afraid I usually abandon my plans and go somewhere else. Cruel, I know, but my idea of a great dining experience is a convivial, nicely lit eatery buzzing with activity. With a restaurant scene as saturated as Shanghai’s, some places just don’t catch on, and it’s impossible to predict how things will swing. Two of my three recent Tumbleweed Experiences have been at restaurants where the food was decent and the atmosphere could have been great with more people. But it’s a snowball effect; fewer people go, so fewer people spread the word, and a place dies on its feet. – Susie Gordon