have you considered adapting your eating habits to the local environment? this may sound somewhat hypocritical coming from a person that lives in china yet doesn't eat chinese food, but bear with me.

i have always had and always will have a sweet tooth. desserts are an essential part of my diet.

i like ice cream. with the exception of emack & bolio's it is my favorite widely distributed brand.

therefore, when i first started working in china, i was a bit let down that 31 flavors (and later haagen daz) were the only brands on offer. i was also purturbed by the prices (31 isn't too bad, but i've never seen pints of ice cream as expensive as HD in china).

but, the let down was short lived. i soon learned that shanghai is one of the best dessert cities in which i've had the pleasure of living. here are some of my favorite dessert spots:

che
azul
paulaner
danieli's
da marco
portman
4 seasons
pudong shangri-la
hyatt
radisson
malone's
tony roma's (the skillet cookie sundae is a work of art)
t8

note: all the hotels listed (and pretty much all 5*s in asia) have a wide variety of sweets on offer during their sunday brunches. aside from brunch, they also tend to have nice lobbies with soft couches and music from which one can also order desserts. if it was still 2002, the westin would be on the above list, but they lost me as a customer when stages changed management and jacked the prices.