Grilled rib eye [Photo provided to Shanghai Star]

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

If you like Japanese and your partner prefers Korean, the best dining room to go to now is Tatsumi at the newly opened Shanghai Marriott Hotel Parkview, just across from the Daning Lingshi Park that has an artificial beach very popular in summer.

Tatsumi is a Japanese restaurant that also offers Korean classics such as natural charcoal-grilled meats, including an excellent Australian Wagyu rib eye and the perennial bulgogi favorite, beef short ribs.

You also get served the large river prawns that are now in season.

The hotel itself seems like an physical ode to lovers, with its huge red eternity ring sculpture in the middle of the lobby and delicately trellised envelopes on the ceiling that look like stacks of love-letters. That should set the mood already.

Tatsumi is an elegant setting for urban romance, and its stylish gold and mushroom tones comfortably complement but do not distract diners from the food on the table.