One Saturday evening a couple of weeks back, we - the lads - finally got around to embarking on the epic Chuanr Quest that we had been planning for the better part of a year, ever since the tragic demise of our former favourite street-eating headquarters, 'The Kebab Queen'. Well, in truth, the "planning" can't have taken more than a few minutes to cobble together, but the combined procrastinations of half a dozen people had repeatedly stymied the project for many months. Kudos, then, to my journo chum, Stroppy Tom, for finally chivvying us into action.
The idea was quite simply that for this one evening we would re-form as an exclusively male drinking clique (most of the guys are married or seriously girlfriended these days; in fact - surprise, suprise! - I am the only one who is properly single any more) and hit a succession of divey hole-in-the-wall Xinjiang joints in the Gulou neighbourhood (long our favoured stomping ground, although I'm the only one of us that still lives here) with the object of finding the best chuanr in Beijing, or at any rate in this corner of the great metropolis.
One member of our merry crew turned up dressed like a Wodehousian dandy (his outlandish ensemble including a pair of golfing slacks that were so tight around the crotch as to be positively obscene). The Choirboy was resplendent in his recently purchased, blazing red 'Team China' Olympic tracksuit top. And Stroppy Tom was wearing his considerably more venerable (and risibly too small) Soviet Union top, now so soiled and holey that it looked as if he might have wrested it from the hands of the elfin Olga Korbut 30-odd years ago.
And I....... I was in my running gear. Tom, you see, had insisted on everyone riding a bicycle; and, as is surely now well known to all my readers, I have a deep-seated fear of bicycles; so, I had had to apply for a special dispensation from our dauntingly strict ringleader in order to be allowed to participate on foot. Although the Dandy jeeringly flouted that rule by coming on his Vespa, and The Suave Bengali (also bike-less, because he couldn't remember where he'd last left his "trusty steed") hitched a ride on the back of that for most of the night. Luckily, we didn't cover very much ground, and I could usually comfortably outpace the bicycles without working up a sweat. My comfort zone, however, shrank considerably later in the evening, as I got more and more full, and more and more drunk; and I was mightily relieved when, after some debate, we finally agreed not to cross beyond Andingmennei street.
Quite an eccentric-looking group we were, to be sure - cruising through the hutongs in our outlandish costumes, employing our various mismatched modes of locomotion. The old Chinese ladies and gents out walking their tiny dogs in the dusk were richly amused by this latest manifestation of the well-known "laowai craziness".
Tom had originally been advocating that we should aim to try out 8 or 10 different places in one session. That always looked an improbably ambitious target, and saner counsels (i.e. me, mostly) were suggesting a more doable total of 5 or 6. I think, in the end, we only managed 4. And none of those really met all of our required criteria: off the beaten track; genuine Xinjiang ownership; space to sit outside during the summer; cold beer. The very first place we went to was aces in almost every respect - except that there was no outside seating, and it rather let itself down with some rather nasty grilled chicken wings after winning high marks with every other form of barbecued animal product we'd tried there. Hmmm, this is proving somewhat harder than we'd imagined.
There will, I fancy, have to be a Second Round of exploration. And perhaps a Third and a Fourth as well. Then, when we've built up a suitable shortlist of potential new 'Queens', we'll move into the second phase of the selection process - spending a whole evening in each one, trying out their other dishes (the quality of their nang bao rou likely to be the deciding factor).
But I can't think of a better way to fritter away the balmy summer evenings.....
4 comments:
Did you ever partake of the fine tradition of the "Dreadful Pub Crawl" back in Oxford?
Well, not intentionally.
Actually, I don't remember there being any "dreadful" pubs back in my day. Oxford was a great pub city in the 80s. Well, The Welsh Pony was a always a bit scary. And The Afro-Caribbean Club (a prefab in the car park on Oxpens Road) was.... well, alarmingly basic, but an interesting experience.
These days there are quite a few dreadful pubs - the infection of the 'wine bar' model - around the city centre. You know, I once applied for a position on the management training course for All Bar One? I'm mightily relieved I didn't make it: the hypocrisy would have killed me; I felt bad enough about even applying.
I loved the Carribean Club!
The DPC took us around some of OXford's low-lights. I am hard pushed to remember the venues, but it did include that nasty ass place on Market St just by the Covered Market that later became an Aussie pub. Pubs weren't chosen for being scary (though some were) or any individual criteria, but instead because they were crap. Like the Pennyfarthing, behind the Westgate Shopping Center, where Iain lost a game of darts to a Chelsea Pensioner with one leg. Or the Horse and Jockey which was, of course, simply awful.
We did always have a 3 pm stop off at the British Rail Buffet Bar for a can of Carlsberg and a bacon bap.
Ah, yes, the "pub" out the back of the Westgate was called The Pennyfarthing. It was a bit charmless, but at least it had live music once in a while. I think that was the first place I saw John Otway play.
The one on Market Street was The Roebuck. I used to think it was all right, and rather regretted its rebranding as Bar Oz. The Bookseller informs me that it has recently become a Wagamama noodle parlour.
I can imagine the 'dreadful pubs' them having a lot more mileage in Headington. Pretty much all shit up there.
The Abingdon Road, on the other hand,contained some unexpected gems.
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