Yep, the horrendous Turd Palace I found myself in last night was a cavernous new lounge bar over by Chaoyang Park called Block8. I was initially hesitant to name-and-shame.... but then I thought: ah, what the hell - that's what this blog is for! (Well, partly, at least.)
As my newest blog-stalker, FG, perceptively points out, the place is probably doomed to go out of business pretty quickly, so if you want to see for yourselves how colossally BAD it is, you should get yourselves over there for a cathartic sneer as soon as possible. But please, don't feel obliged to buy anything there.
And commenter-in-chief Tulsa shrewdly guessed the identity of this bar from last night's preliminary bitch-post. The place has only been open a month or two, and already its vileness is becoming notorious?!
My main objection to the place (apart from the barn-like atmosphere, the deafening hubbub generated by the lousy acoustics, the thin-on-the-ground wait staff, the excessive use of mirrors in the decor [I pretty much knew how awful it was going to be when I exited the lift - any bar you need a lift to get to is off to a very bad start - and found myself negotiating a long, narrow, unsignposted corridor, with grotesque abstract art on one wall and 9ft-high mirrors on the other.... I felt like I was on my way to an appointment with Blofeld], the enormous TV screens showing a continuous [rather short] looped video of pissed-up customers 'having fun') is the really stupidly stratospheric level of prices.
A beer there cost me 40 kuai. That's about 5-and-a-half bucks US. That's nearly 3 times the usual going rate for Beijing, and a significant few kuai more than you have to pay in other too-far-up-themselves (but at least successful) 'high class' bars like Centro and Suzie Wong's. And this wasn't for a pint, mind you; nor even a bottle. No, this was for a tiny glass (no more than a quarter of a pint, at most) of almost undrinkably gassy Tsingtao (the kind of beer that several restaurants here actually give away FREE). Needless to say, everything else on the drinks menu is substantially more expensive. Jeez, I wouldn't pay those sorts of prices in London or New York. In Beijing - where the cost of living is on average barely 20% of that in Western Europe or North America - these prices are just outrageous.
My long-time drinking companion The British Cowboy commented on my earlier post about this place last night that he once had a similar experience, wandering by mischance into an outrageously 'high-end' bar in DC; when charged $8 dollars for a beer, he guffawed at the barman and said, "No, really, be serious: how much is a beer?" I wish I'd done that last night.
At least I was able to escape after that solitary, arm-and-a-leg drink. I can't imagine ever going back there - not even to mock the freaky decor.
12 comments:
OK - and I should say here that I was a bartender for 9 years, and fundamentally oppose blaming the bar staff for the prices in a place.
However, head-up-own-ass-wanky-places are invariably staffed by head-up-own-ass-wanky bartenders. You know the type - the people who created the word "barista" to make themselves feel better about working in Starbucks. I am willing to swear in open court that this bar included men wearing man-capris, and I think the bar staff were among them.
In a Dupont Circle martini bar I was asked to leave for drunkenly asking the bar tender in a very loud voice (when polite inquiries had failed) to "put the motherfucking hockey game on NOW."
Oh, Cowboy, you have to visit here. There are so many joints in Beijing that are sorely in need of a dose of your unique 'diplomacy'.
"head-up-own-ass-wanky bartenders"
TBC, you do have a way with words...
I think Froog and I generally agree on what makes a good bar, though I have more of an emphasis on sports events being televised, I think.
Perhaps that is worthy of a thread? Customers aside, what makes for a good boozer?
Well, we have covered the elements of a good boozer often on here - mostly under the 'Favourite Bars' label, of course.
Maybe I should do a post specifically on that, though, listing the key requirements. Worth a ponder.
I don't know what a "man-capri" is, but it doesn't sound good.
I worry about the kind of friends you're hanging out with these days, Cowboy, that they allow you to be drunk in the Dupont Circle area in a martini bar - that's just asking for trouble. Cigar bar in Georgetown - no problem. Neighbourhood dive in Arlington - natural environment. Cocktail joint on the Circle - huge warning klaxons going off in my head!
Me, I like a good martini once in a while. (The Choirboy mixes a mean one.) But you, you're really a beer man through and through, aren't you?
The martini bar was a LONG time ago. When I was summering with the firm I am now employed by. They gave us a bunch of cash, and told us to go get drunk on Friday. The girls in the group decided that a martini bar was called for...
Anyway, once thrown out, I lead a splitter group to the only non head-up-own-ass-wanky bar in Dupont Circle, Big Hunt.
Man capris are not good. They are capri pants, for men. I shudder at the thought.
A lot of people - even here in Beijing - are going to accuse me of just being mean for digging in so resolutely over the pricing issue, but.... if you take the cost-of-living differential into account, these c**ts are trying to charge around US$30 - for a highball glass of skanky beer. Who's being unreasonable here??
Re the pricing: That is amazing when you consider what a local may earn. But I have often thought of it before the other way on. There is method in their madness.
It is (by normal standards) un PC to exclude people from bars so they have to think of something if they want to exclusive. Dress codes, membership or the like - prices the 'wrong' clientele can't afford is by far the easiest option. Not nice but true I think?
It is, I think, economically misguided to set prices at that level. You are excluding almost everyone - apart from the stupidly rich (who are not that numerous), and people who want to try to hang out with the stupidly rich without actually spending any money.
If you are going to go for exclusivity-on-price, you should back that up with high standards - so that there's still some perception of value for money (even the rich have their thrifty side). If you're going to charge a huge amount for your beer, it should be good beer, well-kept, and in a decent-sized glass.
If you want to position yourself as a really classy bar in Beijing, you should outlaw fucking Tsingtao altogether - and only serve properly-poured half-pints of a premium beer like Stella. I wouldn't mind (so much) if they charged 80 or 100kuai for something like that. But 40kuai for a tumbler of Tsingtao is just taking the piss, it's an insult!!!!
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I am pleased to note that this Block8 bar (well, the bar part of the complex actually had the even more naff name of i-Ultra Lounge) has now died the death.
Amazing that it hung on for 18 months or so!
And the owners seem to be representing it as a victim of the economic downturn rather than a victim of its stupendous CRAPNESS.
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