A few people have asked what restaurant served that live lobster. The restaurant is Dynasty and it’s unlike any restaurant you’ve ever seen – at least on this side of the world. Dynasty is a restaurant in Shanghai (the city has three of them). Created because Deng Xiaoping said, “To get rich is glorious!” Dynasty is a perfect example of conspicuous consumption ran amok. Today’s China is getting very rich. The country has over 300,000 citizens with net worth of over $1 million US, excluding property. Nowhere is this more evident than in Shanghai, China’s biggest and richest city.
Dynasty caters to Shanghai’s high society class, government officials with expense accounts, and foreigners wishing to experience a restaurant that is beyond anything they can get back home. Dynasty is five stories tall and looks more like a grand hotel than a restaurant. The floors are made from imported marble and there is gold everywhere. All the dinning rooms are private except the open dining area on the fifth floor.
The service at Dynasty is fit for royalty. No less than six female greeters welcome you when you enter the restaurant. One greeter will escort you to the elevator to take you to your floor. A greeter inside the elevator pushes the floor button so you don’t have to. When the elevator door opens, two more greeters will be waiting to take you to your table or private dining room. If you decide to take a walk through the restaurant, on coming waiters and hosts will stand aside and bow their heads as you walk by. It’s really quite overwhelming.
How much does a Dynasty experience cost? My dinner bill came to 1000RMB, which works out to $125US. You have to love that US exchange rate! 
Keep in mind that the average factory worker in China makes $100US a month. Here are some more photos.
Did you enjoy this post? Get John Chow Dot Com updates via email...
Stay up to date with all of John Chow’s tips for making money online and blog posts by subscribing via email. Your email will be kept private and never shared with anyone.
One of the most common complaint (or excuse) I hear from potential new bloggers is they don’t know how to install WordPress. Terms like FTP and CPanel are like a foreign language and setting up a database might as well be setting up the space shuttle for a launch. Because of the technology barrier, many would-be bloggers never start their blogs...