Beijing Boyce

Last week, I reported that Centro, Suzie Wong’s, Face and China Doll received the most TBJ bar and club awards nominations and that I’d soon list all the categories and nominees. Well, that would now be rather redundant, given the survey is online.

These awards always give me headaches. Take the category of bar / club of the year. Here are the nominees:

Bar Blu
China Doll
D-22
The Den
Q Bar
The Rickshaw
Stone Boat Cafe
Suzie Wong’s
Vics

My favorite place right now is Rickshaw - I like the staff, the wings and burritos, the happy hour, and hanging out on the second floor deck. But then I think: this place has only been open for two months, can it be the bar of the year? Up the street is Q Bar, which, when not too busy, has represented a nice retreat for cocktails for 12 months and has a nice deck. Even so, if I place personal preferences aside, it’s hard to ignore Suzie Wong’s: it’s not my pint of Qingdao, but this place does reinvest in its space, bring in quality staff, provide consistency and pack the house, thus actually getting better year after year. (This is no mean feat - look at last year’s winner, Browns, which failed to make the cut this time.) China Doll? A worthy example of a bar that has good music and appeals to locals and foreigners alike. Stone Boat? A getaway in the city center to chill out and hear excellent bands. And on and on… and that’s before considering the places I could pick with a write-in vote.

In any case, anyone who publicly yaps about the bar scene — that’d be me — ought to put up or shut up, so I’ll take a couple of aspirin and make my picks right after I finish a major project on June 30 and before the voting deadline of July 11.

Eleven days should be enough to decide…