Ah, so that explains it...

I have long been fascinated by the Mystery Bar (not its real name, you understand).

It's quite big; not too discouragingly twee (the curse of interior decor in most Chinese bars); indeed, it's quite winningly dark and unfussy inside. And it's in a not unpromising location: on a major road, mid-way between Gongti and Houhai.

With my eccentric predilection for walking home from Sanlitun, I have been past this place many times over the past four or five years. And I have never seen a single customer in there - not one. The two or three times I've poked my head around the door to investigate, the handful of people lounging around inside all seem to have been members of staff. And they were always hugely reluctant to serve me a drink - they'd always claim they were just closing.... whether it was 1am (which it usually was, but that's still early for Beijing) or 10pm.

How odd, I always thought, that the place could keep going so long, with so little custom.

A bar owner friend who's been intermittently contemplating trying to buy the place out told me a little while back that he'd seen a notice in the window advertising for a 'Day Manager', and thought this would be a decent pretext for going and having a chat with them about what their set-up was. Curiouser and curiouser: why the hell do they need a Day Manager when they're not even conspicuously "open for business" at night???

Ah, well, it seems they needed someone to "keep an eye on the girls". "Girls???" I boggled (naively) for a moment. The Chinese friend relaying the tale was struggling for the right word: "Yes. What do you call it when girls have sex with you for money?" "Oh my god, you mean it's A BROTHEL?"

So it would seem.

Mystery solved, then. Although I still don't quite understand why they're so darned reluctant to serve anyone a drink. If they've set up a bar as a 'front' for their brothel, you wouldn't think it would harm business to actually run it as a bar. I suppose they just don't want laowai custom - for beer or broads.

I probably shouldn't name the place - but here's a clue.

The Curse

One of the many great things about my favourite bar of the past couple of years, 12 Square Metres, is its location - at the south end of trendy shopping street, Nanluoguxiang.

It's a very touristy little locale, but not too obnoxiously so. And there's scads of inexpensive accommodation around there - on the street itself, or very nearby: everything from cheap'n'basic Chinese business hotels to Western-style backpacker hostels, and even a few more upmarket offerings like the Lusongyuan Hotel, a cosy traditional courtyard (just a stone's throw from the bar: we get a lot of people in from there).

Thus, there are a lot of English-speaking transients passing through the 'hood. And, since 12 Square Metres is one of only two Western-style bars on the street (and the smaller, cosier of the two, the only one that's something like a proper pub), quite a few of these people look in on the place.... and find a friendly welcome.

And a significant proportion of these random, one-off drop-ins are strikingly attractive single women (or women playing at being single, travelling without their partners). And it always seems to fall to me to make conversation with these ladies, to welcome them into the 12SQM 'family'.

And these conversations often go far too well. Unfortunately, the ladies are invariably leaving Beijing the next morning. It really is not good for my brittle heart.

Drive-by flirting - there really ought to be a law against it.

Say what?

I am, I regret to report, severely unenamoured of The Cowboy's neighbourhood bar.

Amongst the gravest of its shortcomings - it has the worst acoustics of any bar I've ever been. Bare walls, a high ceiling (industrial minimalist approach, with exposed metal ventilation ducts, etc.), a big window - the sound just bounces and rattles around in there something horrible. It actually seems to amplify sound in some strange way. It's like being inside a tin box. Somebody drops a pin, and it sounds more like a metal scaffolding pole.

And, of course, because of this, everybody SHOUTS.

Having pointless background music on the whole time doesn't help either (not loud enough for you to actually hear, but loud enough to prompt the punters to yell even more to make themselves heard above it).

Since the place seems to be positioning itself primarily as a sports bar - two or three large screens continuously showing live games, mostly baseball - you'd think, wouldn't you, that they might actually want to play the game commentary occasionally, rather than pumping out the incessant middle-of-the-road rock music. But no. Always with the music. (I guess you wouldn't be able to hear the TVs, no matter what.)

Really, I do not exaggerate: this bar is painfully noisy, a serious environmental health hazard. Even with just a handful of people in there, the background buzz becomes deafening. When there's any kind of a crowd, the decibel level is through the roof! I leave there with my head throbbing and my eardrums buzzing. And I can barely hear a word anyone says to me in there.

Doubleplusungood.

The Smelly Bar

I mentioned a few weeks back that I'd had a pretty good first impression of a new bar over on Andingmennei (it's about a 30 or 35 minute walk away; but that just about counts as 'local' for me - I'm a big walker) - although that was mainly down to the embarrassingly generous measure of Glenfiddich the barman poured me.

Even if it was unlikely that that particular aberration (a "bank error in your favour", as it used to say on the 'Chance' cards in Monopoly!) would be repeated, that one incident was enough to give me some warm fuzzies about the place. And I'd heard some positive buzz about it from a few other people too. So, I had my hopes for it. And it is French-run...... which is not necessarily a bad thing. There do tend to be a few undesirable 'national characteristics' I notice in certain of the French bar/restaurant proprietors in this town (arrogance, lackadaisical service, disdain for Anglophones...) - but their joints are mostly well-run, attractive, fun..... and full of gorgeous French women.

This place is, however, conspicuously some way short of bar perfection. A poor location - on a drab street, quite some way distant from any other Western bar or restaurant. A floor-to-ceiling window at the front (although, since Chinese street-lighting is so minimal, you don't really notice this at night!). Rather overlit (especially upstairs - I may have omitted to mention this in the original 'great bar' post, but having an upstairs at all, or any kind of divided space, is generally a negative feature for me). The decor tends towards the airy and modern: all light wood rather than dark! And the weekend live music is not proving to be a huge draw (most of the musos I know who've played there say they dislike it as a venue: the 'stage' is tiny, crammed in the far corner of the downstairs bar, underneath a low balcony). Hmmm, yes, and the name's a bit dubious too - Room 101. Doesn't conjure up positive associations, does it?! And you will remember my view that numbers - and sci-fi references - in bar names are not good. (I bet a 'Room 101' is mentioned in 'The Matrix' somewhere....)

However, on the plus side - they have a very good selection of drinks, the prices are quite reasonable, and the staff seem pretty good. And they have an island bar (which does at least enable you to get a view of the postage-stamp-sized stage from almost anywhere downstairs). I love island bars - and I can't think of anywhere else in Beijing that has one (they are, of course, quite commonplace in Edinburgh - probably my favourite bar city on earth). And the staircase is rather imposing, an unusual shape (although this can also be a negative point, apparently: my very cool French friend, Nico, complains that - since the toilets are upstairs - you have to navigate this damned staircase rather too often of an evening, and with advancing drunkenness it becomes increasingly vertiginous and apt to induce accidents!).

I've also mentioned the eccentrically-timed 'happy hours', which are potentially quite an attractive gimmick - although I haven't been able to find the timing of these advertised anywhere! However, the 24-hour opening thing really doesn't seem to be working out for them - I have dropped by a couple of times in the wee small hours of the morning to check it out, and found the place utterly deserted.

Now, of course, it takes time to build up a clientele, particularly a round-the-clock clientele, and this place has only been open a couple of months. But, with all these positive things going for it, I suspect it is struggling to build up a strong base of regular customers because of the smell. My American buddy Big Chris (my poker guru, who happens to live just around the corner) had warned me early on that there was a weird chemical stink about the place - but that first time I visited, I didn't notice anything. On that night, it was crowded and smoky (and I had a cold!), so maybe the smell was being masked. On subsequent visits, when the bar was empty, or very nearly so, I found it so overpowering, I was unwilling to stay. Last Friday, I decided to give the place a try again (walking home from a concert at the Star Live club at the head of the next block east). Damn - can this chemical problem actually be getting worse rather than better? Or maybe I am just more sensitized to it now? This time, I caught a whiff of that darned smell even before I walked through the door, outside on the street; and inside, despite an atmosphere rich with garlicky French sweat and aromatic cigarettes, it was immediately very noticeable above this potent, but non-toxic, background bar smell. I had assumed that this was a 'new building syndrome' type of problem, the cumulative impact of all the paints, varnishes, and glues used in fitting the place out, and that it would soon dissipate; but, if anything, the problem seems to be intensifying. And it's not just unpleasant; it's a downright health hazard - I worry for the staff there, I really do.

Unless something can be done quickly to address this environmental health issue, I fear there is no hope for this bar. It is a pity, because I had really wanted to like it; I was giving it as many chances as possible. It has enough good features (and no really objectionable ones - apart from this poisonous air) to keep it off my 'Hate List'. I think I'll have to create an 'Unsafe' list specially for it. Oh dear.