come on! it's off a bar street, and a has-been bar street, at that. the lunch set it can routinely fetch consists of ibm employees and a limited subset of embassy staffs. although i don't think they paid off tbj, the fact that they could generate an economist review with such an undistinguished product suggests to me that their PR is above average, to say the least.

btw, while i was out tonight, morrel's struck me as another restaurtant that should be mentioned here. in case you haven't figured it out yet, chinese food isn't really my thing (i even went so far as to pack a bag full of "duck sauce" that i picked up in baltimore several weeks back, for the sole purpose of sprucing the local fare up a bit) so it's hard for me to respond to your regionally specific queries.

that said: 1) my mind is open; 2) there are a handful of chinese restaurants that i like in both beijing and shanghai; and 3) i know the western restaurant scene cold in both cities.