Across the street (diagonal), from Cloud Nine at Zongshan Park Station, or east of Line 3 or 4, lies Raffle City Changing. This unique little mall is initially difficult to navigate considering the maps are inaccurate and do not tell you some important details, such as that there are two separate buildings (East Building and West Building, which are actually South Building and North Building respectively) and that despite the claim of being open, most places are not actually open.
On the inside east side of the south building is a small food street, with four restaurants. They are not accessible inside, so one must leave the mall, to access them. Here I was surprised to find ‘The Isle’ Restaurant, which is a new British fish and chip chain. Sadly at this location, they decided to go upscale bar (more like a traditional gentlemen’s club) versus traditional fish and chip vendor and use an ‘updated menu’. The staff acknowledged that this was more of a bar and more of a step away from the other locations, citing the cost of rent. Next door is Hungry Lung’s Kitchen, a pseudo-Canadian restaurant. Next to this is not familiar european restaurant and finally Ocean Grounds Kitchen and Coffee, which I previously encountered in my quest for coffee venues.
In the middle of the complex is a square which houses the refurbished St. Mary’s Hall (聖瑪利亞女中) which was a a training school (home economics, english, music, dance) established in 1851 and was next to St. John’s College and was next to the Anglican cathedral of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (中華聖公會, Holy Trinity Cathedral, 圣三一主教座堂, Red Church, Holy Catholic Church in China or Anglican-Episcopal Province of China, Anglican-Episcopal Province of China) is the oldest cathedral in China and served as the head church after 1958, during the merger of Anglican denominations (Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England, Episcopal Church of the United States and others). In 1923, it moved to its current location (1187 Changning Road; Formerly Brenan Road). In 1959, St. Mary’s was merged with McTyeire School (中西女中; established 1892) to establish Number 3 Middle School (Also called Number 3 Girls’ High School) at 155 Jiangsu Lu. The site at 1187 Changning Road became Shanghai Spinning Industry College. In 1999, Donghua University’s Chang’an Brach Spinning Industry Department.
I then headed to the top floor of the east (south) complex and made my way through each floor, most of the shops are in the mid-tier, with some with incorrect english spelling on their names. The shopping complex is well lit and has windows which allow for viewing the square bellow. Escalators are on both east and west sides of the complex, with large up flowing escalators between.
In the basement, there is a White Castle (closed), which is one of the first restaurants to have standardized methods across a chain of restaurants, while it never franchised, it has over 420 outlets. It developed the concept of an assembly line kitchen and so is given credit as the forerunner of ‘fast food’. Their most famous product are mini hamburgers called sliders which were originally fresh meat, but now are frozen patties, which are thin and have holes in them.
I then headed to the West (North) building, which for the most part is vacant and quiet. It rises up four floors, plus a basement which was closed. The elevators here are not as comfortable as the ones in the East (South) tower. Apparently a Friday’s will open up on the ground floor.
Getting hungry, I decided to take a chance on Hungry Lung’s Kitchen, as I heard rumours that they had a real poutine – exciting, I would not need to travel to Nanjing for Poutine with Cheese Curds any more?
