Hooters Shanghai

Update: My workload has suddenly increased to the point where I actually have to do stuff. Consequently posts over the next few months will be shorter so instead of just being insane, they will be inane.

My friends, it is all happening in Shanghai these days. Sure, Europe has its dark dining while the US has its bed dining. These might appear to be high concepts designed to transform dining into experiences that are more sophisticated than one Soft Serve Cone, extra lard please, and don't be stingy on the sugar. However they are just creative ways devised by scheming restauranteurs of stealing your money. Under the guise of dark dining, they can serve you anything they scraped off the bottom of a rubbish bin and call it haute cuisine. The Michelin stars are right there in front of you, it's just that you can't see them! Bed dining is intended to lull diners into a false sense of relaxation until their tastebuds fall asleep, making them unable to distinguish the bland from the bloody delicious.

Instead of pandering to the highest common factor, China has opted to introduce some wholesome and hearty cuisine in the form of Hooters Shanghai. Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined! Please note that this is different from something that is delightfully tacky and refined, like a European royal wedding (seriously, did the woman in blue come with her own personal swarm of hornets?).

The first few weeks of business at Hooters Shanghai is expected to be busy. There will be some diners who are genuinely interested in buffalo shrimp and their world famous wings (probably the same people who read Playboy for the articles). However the bulk of the clientele will be guys who have trouble walking properly at the thought of being served beer by an attractive female in a low cut top and short shorts.


Hang on, isn't the picture above slightly worrying, and not just because of the cutesy V sign which pisses me off to no end (we get it, the Allies won WWII, the German and the Japanese lost. Now let's move on, shall we?). I'm just not seeing enough stretch. To be a HOOTERS girl, you need to be able to put on the owl top and stretch the wording until it reads H O O T E R S. These are real HOOTERS girls - the guy can't even keep his eyes off the calendar and I'm pretty sure he's not checking out what day of the week his wedding anniversary falls on next year.

The HOOTERS Shanghai girls are in real danger of becoming the runts of the large-breasted litter. We might as well give up now and change the name of the restaurant to WONTONS or DIMSUMS. Rumour has it that the waitresses are being paid in breast enhancement creams and pills, but the process of organic growth takes time.

Recognising such physical shortcomings, HOOTERS Shanghai has decided to focus on friendliness instead. But friendly is such a broad term, even broader than the wide expanse of China. It can span from "Hi, how are you?" to "Here's my number. My bisexual girlfriend and I like to have naked pillow fights. You can watch or join in. Whatever." Hmmm maybe they just need to rethink the uniform for the Shanghai branch and have a different sort of racy orange outfit.