Top Five 'Pastures New'

I've been varying my drinking experience quite a bit of over the last few months.  Partly, it's work that has been taking me further afield; partly, perhaps, it's a certain ennui taking hold with regard to some of my long-established favourites; partly, it's just a case of there having been some interesting new openings that needed to be checked out.

This might well have become a 'Top 10' post.  In the past three or four months, I have.... renewed my acquaintance with tiny, fun music bar What (after 3 or 4 years of shameful neglect!), I've tried out new Jianwai SOHO opening Shala (the creation of an old drinking companion from 12SqM; I wish him all the best with it, but I find it a rather identity-less kind of bar... and it's in Jianwai SOHO, so I'm unlikely to pay more than a token once or twice a year visit), tried out trendy new night spot School (to my surprise, I do not hate it; decent service and quite cheap, though their DJ 'music' is not at all my thing) and the bizarre new Sanlitun bottle shop (eventually named the Heaven supermarket: it would be a godsend if the stock weren't all months out of date!), stopped in at Fu a few times (one of the more pleasant off-Nanluoguxiang spots, but too coffee bar-ish for me, and largely devoid of punters... and, crikey, after three or four contentedly customerless years, it suddenly CLOSED, just a few days after I posted this), finally hunted down the much buzzed but hard-to-find Great Leap Brewery (I'm not such a fan: they've got a great courtyard space, but it's full of people who can afford to pay 40 rmb for a beer.... and that's not me), looked in on the newly expanded and remodelled BeerMania (again, I am not a fan: 40 rmb and more for a beer??!!), and - since I've been teaching some classes at Beijing Foreign Studies University - I've checked out a number of the foreign student-targeted places round there (such as the Old Bike Café and the bizarrely named PKD [??]; found them all a bit dire, I'm afraid), and so on.

However, the places that have really inspired some interest and merited more than the isolated visit are....

My Top Five new bar discoveries

5)  Sundance Club

Investigations of this place are still at an early stage.  But I like the name. And I like the idea of a bar that nobody but me will ever go to. It's one of those archetypally naff, quixotic little Chinese ventures that I described in this 'typical bar trajectory' post a year ago: only a few minutes from Houhai, but on a street with absolutely no walk-by at all.  Though it tries to entice people in with the promise of darts and board games, I don't think it's ever likely to achieve much success.  At present, it seems to be serving just as a den for the young Chinese owner and three or four of his ne'er-do-well mates to slob around playing video games and watching Beijing Guo'an on the telly.

4)  Laowai's

Not such a new discovery, since I looked in here a few times shortly after it opened at the end of last summer.  However, I've been working up in Wudaokou for the last three months; and The Chairman and his brother Terrible Tes both live nearby, and have made it one of their most regular haunts; so, I've been dropping in quite a bit, usually on Thursdays. It seems to be the most successful of the rash of new openings that greeted the start of the new academic year last autumn (most have folded already!), and is giving the expensive-but-long-established Lush and the cheap'n'cheerful Helen's a good run for their money. I find it noisy, overlit, and thoroughly charmless (and the service is, predictably, a bit wayward); but some of the food isn't half bad, and the prices are very reasonable.  It also has a couple of so-so pool tables and a shuffleboard table (although no-one seems to know how to play that). Of course, its 'crowd' is almost entirely Mandarin students - a class of people that I do not love - but, curiously enough, all the irksome Young Americans seem to prefer Lush and Pyro Pizza, while Laowai's attracts an interestingly international and much more engaging group of youngsters.

3)  Mississippi

Or Mrs Hippy, as I like to think of it. Again, not really a new 'discovery', since I have been enticed over there a few times in the past - but too infrequently for me to have remembered where it is! I renewed my acquaintance with it because the new manager there likes to drink in 12 Square Metres occasionally on his night off, and invited me round to sample some new items on the menu. The place has been around for years, but hardly any foreigners - aside from a handful of regulars who live nearby - seem to be aware of its existence. It's at the far end of that mostly rather undistinguished strip of restaurants behind the old Friendship Store - further down that lane than anyone ever goes. It's a would-be American 'steakhouse', but with somewhat indifferent Chinese execution of the concept... and an inconspicuous sign and no advertising. The quality and pricing of the food is a bit erratic. At present, they seem to be surviving on an almost entirely Chinese - and perhaps not that discriminating? - clientele. But the place has potential - oh yes!! It has a properly dark bar, and a very cheap 'happy hour' that runs almost all day (not entirely a good thing; a bit overdone, if you ask me). It's the kind of place where you can get completely lashed for under 200 kuai. I didn't think they existed any more!

2)  Laker's

Having said that... a couple of months or so ago, a new backpacker type of bar opened up just around the corner from me (in the big youth hostel half-way up Jiugulou Dajie), whose pricelist is a complete throwback to the bad old good old days of Sanlitun South Bar Street: it is, as I observed a month ago, a dive bar time machine. I assume the name is intended to call to mind the Los Angeles basketball team, but with the intrusion of a 'grocer's apostrophe'. Yes, I fear this does intimate the likelihood of an inept and scattergun approach to winning foreign custom. The food, indeed, is all over the place: some things appear very good value while others... oh dear (the burger is generously proportioned, but made of utterly rancid meat, which I very much doubt derives from a cow; the pizza crusts are so thin and brittle as to be unable to bear the weight even of the skimpy toppings provided; and the 'nachos' are a small bowl of tortilla chips with a little plastic cheese melted over them, nothing else - not really an inspiring offering; although I still haven't checked out the all-day breakfast, which looks quite promising... I'm such a fearlessly persistent culinary explorer!).  Also, they do tend to play some really vile music (mostly hip-hop/R'n'B - obviously targeted at a much younger crowd), and way too loud (although, at least, they are usually amenable to turning it down, if you ask them nicely). However, it's on my doorstep, it's got a nice little terrace out front, and the booze is amazingly cheap (and, even more amazingly, not fake): the Long Island Iced Tea they don't know how to make but put A LOT of alcohol into anyway for only 30 kuai, and the very decent pints of Beijing draught beer for 10 kuai are the top picks.

But, in the top spot, instead of all this low-rent, budget-conscious sleazerie, we have a touch of class....

1)  Za Jia

This is the best new bar to open in Beijing since El Nido. It's a pity that it is doomed to shortly be overwhelmed by hordes of noxious hipsters, but, at present, it's often pretty deserted on week nights (they don't bother to open at all on Mondays), and so is becoming a fairly regular last stop on my way home (from which it is but 7 or 8 minutes away). It's an absolutely gorgeous space, in a very old building (it used to be part of a Daoist temple complex, I believe, probably a storehouse or something: the central roof beam is 25ft high); tastefully decorated; dark and wombily cosy.  Opened by a couple of artists, it has video works looping on a couple of small TV screens most of the time, and a tiled space on one wall with weekly-changing quotations or graffiti art. They have connections with the music scene too, and a lot of CDs by local bands they like are available to buy at the bar. They do occasional events and live music shows as well. And it's really quite reasonably priced: I baulk slightly at a 20-kuai Harbin beer (though that's not so unreasonable for such a stylish venue), but most of the other drinks are good value; the bargain highlight of their list is the Islay malt whiskies at just 45 rmb per glass - the best price in the city! God, I love this place!

[It's an added bonus for me that there's a rather good snooker hall just upstairs.]

And so, there you have it. Just when I thought my drinking life was getting stuck in a rut, suddenly there are all these new options. I hardly know which way to turn.