LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION, as the realtors say. While others may seek the ultimate dining experience in the cuisine I look for it in the locale, the food serving merely as the rationale for another look at an old house. As a matter of principle I avoid any place that features that pretentious Nouvelle Cuisine, where, as the writer Clive James notes, "the ceramic element dominates."

Thus as an admitted non-gourmand my feeling is, food schmood -- give me an interesting remnant of yesteryear any time. (This from the only person in the whole world who ever curtailed a tour in Paris in order to return to Shanghai, thus making anything I say suspect.)

While I do admit that in my favorite old edifices the service is sometimes spotty and the food does not always measure up to the beauty of the surroundings (hey, you can always order a bowl of noodles, right?), feasting your eyes on the lovely architectural details around you more than makes up for any culinary deficit. At least it does for me (and I exhibit no signs of malnutrition).

With that caveat, over the next several months I will share with you The Seven Sisters. That is what I call the seven delightful old locales that have dining facilities somewhere on the premises. In order to avoid the appearance of favoritism, I will start with the most western location and work my way Bundward.

THE FIRST TWO

THE BIG FAN (in Chinese, Da Feng Che or Windmill), in Lane 1440 Hong Qiao Lu near the Broadcasting Building, T: 6275-9131, ext 268.

One of the ten Spanish Revival style houses in the old Grenada Estates opened as a restaurant over a year ago and has been doing a roaring business ever since, especially with Chinese Yuppies. The place is packed every night with Chuppies complete with trophy girlfriends and mobile phones. (Reservations in the evening are a must, but lunches are no problem.) With this clientele predominating the menu is only in Chinese, alas, but the staff is helpful, albeit unilingual. As a last resort you can always order one of each from the dim sum menu -- or simply point to dishes on surrounding tables if you are absolutely stumped.

Once you have overcome the ordering obstacle, what do you get (besides the food, which is really quite good)? First a cup containing tea loaded with berries and fungi and other healthy stuff and filled by a marksman holding a long spouted tea kettle and shooting the water into your cup from an alarming distance (never fear, he never misses). But on to the architecture.

You sit in the dark paneled living and dining rooms of an old villa, whose neighbors still retain their wrought iron staircase railings and Spanish style fireplaces (try to peep in the windows of some of the unrenovated ones when you leave). The lamps are faux-Tiffany and the place is loaded with memorabilia and photos of old Shanghai and its old movie stars, cinemas, streets and personages. There are three private dining rooms, one featuring the original fireplace, and the hallway leading to them sports a further photo gallery. (Daisy Kwok, for instance, found her family's photo there.)

The Grenada Estates complex was one of two built in the 1930's (the other, Holly Heath, is currently being destroyed) for young moderns who sought the quiet of the countryside without the bother and expense of supporting a large villa. Legend has it that the Flying Tiger pilots once lived in the villas, and we know for sure that by the early 1950's Jardine Matheson had concentrated its staff housing there.

Much of the vast gardens which once surrounded the villas has been sacrificed for a parking area but a green sward still survives at the rear of the complex. It is so lovely and peaceful there that it is hard to imagine that you are only a few hundred yards off busy Hong Qiao Lu.

THE XING GUO GUEST HOUSE, 72 Xing Guo Lu, House No.7, Tel: 6212-9070.

As you drive into the compound's circular driveway ignore the first restaurant to your right and drive on along to House No. 7 at the rear of the compound. Note the gorgeous lock plate on the original front door of this old faux-Gothic house (and try to ignore the tacky glass addition in front of it). The mansion retains many of its original features, its columns, ceiling moldings and decorations, the oaken fireplace and staircase. You can dine in the old drawing room or dining room or on the former terrace (now enclosed). If the windows were not so heavily draped you could look out onto the broad green sward and lovely garden.

After dining you will want to walk across the lawn to the see the other lovely villas in the compound. (Again, try to ignore the tacky pre-fab plastic houses plunked down all over the grounds.) First you see a sprawling Spanish Revival beauty of buttery yellow, and beyond that a columned white duplex, each side resembling a demi-Tara in the Southern colonial style -- certainly as pair of the most dramatically lovely attached houses you will ever find anywhere. (Can we forgive Management for planting two gigantic satellite dishes on the lawn just outside their doors?)

Walk down the lane along side them and that brings you to the front (and most dramatic) side of the piece de resistance, the old Butterfield and Swire mansion. It was designed by the famous Scottish architect, Clough Williams-Ellis, who said that it was the

First house he had ever done "by mail order." He designed it but never actually set foot in China to see his product.

That is perhaps fitting, as Mr. Swire, for whom it was built, never actually came here to live in his creation; it was built for show only, to match the ostentatious residence on Hong Qiao Road of Mr. Keswick of Jardine Matheson, his rival in the other powerful Shanghai hong. The Swire House was subsequently rented out to the manager of the Hazlewood ice cream company and is known to the locals simply as "the ice cream house."

Interestingly, throughout all the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution the mansion remained intact, even including the brass plaque in the entrance foyer which lists "C.W-E, Architect" along with other initials (but no names). Its survival is undoubtedly due to the fact that both Chairman Mao and his wife Jiang Qing at one time or other stayed there.

Her presence also accounts for the air raid shelter which still stands to the right of the restaurant where you dined; there is a white pre-fab house now slotted into the covering mound with its telltale protruding air vents. You may also find such shelters in two other mansions-cum-restaurants we cover. How convenient -- if there is an air raid while you are eating you are in the ideal place to be! Not every restaurant in Shanghai can offer that little extra service.