Beijing Boyce

The Emperor Hotel announced that it will donate all income earned from May 13 to May 16 at its Yin Bar to the Red Cross Society of China for earthquake relief in Sichuan. On May 15 and May 16, Acupuncture Records will spin tunes from 9:30 PM at Yin, which offers a stunning view of The Forbidden City. The hotel will hold a charity dinner at its Shi restaurant on March 16. (Call 6523-6877 for more info.)

Tonight (May 14) sees bands The Verse, Rando(m), Sand and IC Girlband team up at Mao Live House for an earthquake relief fund-raiser. The show is slated for 8:30 PM and entry is RMB50. (Call 6402-5080 for more information.)

Finally, tomorrow night (May 15), The Wine Republic will hold a tasting of six Australian wines at The Bookworm, starting at 7:30 PM, and donate RMB100 of each RMB180 entrance fee to the Red Cross Society of China. (RSVP at 5869-7050 /  events@thewinerepublic.com.)

Time is running out to vote in this year’s City Weekend Reader Choice Awards, which covers the Beijing dining and nightlife scenes. According to the magazine, there are close races in several categories. To cast your vote, go here.

Eight is a lucky number in China, so for each of the 88 days until the 2008 Olympics, I will strip-mine my brain to unearth a thought related to Beijing and The Games. That’s one thought per brain cell. It’s called teamwork, people!

Thought 2 of 88

Back in mid-January, I wrote that the Olympics payoff for bars in Sanlitun depended on several “whether or not” scenarios. I repeat them briefly below in italics, with an update on what has happened in the four months since that post.

Whether or not bars and clubs in Tongli Studio and its environs, just west of the main Sanlitun strip, remain open. Numerous Tongli bars faced short-term closures this year, with fire safety code violations being the usual reason given. The area in the nearby streets is associated in many people’s minds with seediness.

The four Pure Girl bars were shut down during a substantial police raid early last month and remain closed. Also of note, in late February the China Daily reported that six establishments at Workers’ Stadiums’ north end will close during the Olympics for security reasons.

Whether or not the strip of mostly copy-cat bars on the east side of Sanlitun’s main strip will be open. This is where wandering male visitors hear “lady bar, sexy girl”, almost everyone hears “DVD, DVD” (from touts) and “money, money” (from beggars), and the average spot features chairs out front, a live band inside, and what I consider overpriced beer.

There has been no drop in the number of “lady bar” touts, nor any sign that anything is other than “business as usual” here. That includes the long-standing feud between the owners (and their security guards) of that monstrous building just off the strip and the construction workers who built it, whose plight is explained in writing in the windows of a van parked nearby.

Whether or not new establishments are open and ready to go - many places in the new Nali Studio, beside the 3.3 Building, are behind schedule. This ranges from Ciro’s, which was supposed to open last year, to Project H20, which predicted opening one floor by last week, but is far from doing so.

Ciro’s and The Saddle Cantina have since opened, while Muse looks close to being done. I have been unable to get an opening date out of those involved with Project H2O. Most of the new Nali Studio, however, remains empty. Both China Doll in Sanlitun and Klubb Rouge in China View, near the Workers’ Stadium, should be open within a month. Speaking of China View, there are now more than a dozen food and beverage outlets there.

Whether or not a makeshift bar area will open.

No evidence of this so far.

Whether or not the government controls entry to Sanlitun.

Nor of this.

Previously
Thought 1: If they build it, we may come

My truest test of which wines are “good value” to me is whether or not I buy them or recommend them to friends and readers. I have done so many times with wines such as Grace Vineyard Chardonnay (RMB60/Torres) and Heartland Shiraz (RMB150 / Palette) - I find the first good for those who want to try a Chinese wine and the second good for those in need of a bottle to take to a friend’s house. I also recommend many other wines to friends and readers, from the Gruner Veltliner at Cafe Europa to some of the offerings at this year’s Palette and GELIPU-Winelink portfolio tastings.

I am updating that list to include the French wines selected by Alain Leroux (a contributor to this blog) and available at the Guanghua Road and Sanlitun North branches of Sequoia Café.

I doubt you will find better-value French wine in Beijing than the five-entry level bottles - Vale Viognier 2006, Vale Merlot 2006, Vale Syrah 2006, Vale Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 and Louxor Chardonnay 2006. All of them hail from Languedoc Roussilon and cost a paltry RMB65 per bottle. Numerous people, including two wine distributors, told me the Viognier offers especially good value.

I also like the slightly more expensive Domaine Des Oliviers Cotes Du Rhone 2006 at RMB100 and the Chateau Ayraud Corbieres 2004 at RMB134 (60 percent Grenache, 40 percent Syrah).

Leroux worked with winemaker Jean Berteau, based in France, to pick about two dozens wines to bring to China, and these have been categorized into “full-bodied whites”, “smooth reds”, “big reds” and so on at Sequoia Cafe to make things easier for the consumer.

As I shuffled the street pre-coffee one recent morning, my synapses fired briefly and inspired this thought - if someone asked me to suggest places in my Sanlitun-Workers Stadium hood to grab a cup of java, what would they be? Off the top of my head, here are four picks. (By the way, I’m no coffee expert, so if anyone has other recommendations, let me know and I’ll give them a try.)

Le Petit Gourmand’s American coffee (RMB15) - a good-value beverage served in a glass with a handle and space for the spoon, thus saving every fifth diner from knocking their utensil to the floor. (LPG is a good place to chill, as long as the staff doesn’t play that CD of “What’s Going On?” remixes.)

Cafe St Laurent Cappuccino (RMB30) - this weekend brunch favorite gets marks for size and frothiness. Check this video of a sugar cube slowly disappearing into the lather like a… uh… uh… a stunned mastodon sinking inch by inch into the murky-molasses-thick depths of a foamy Pleistocene swamp a sugar cube slowly disappearing into the lather.

Revelations’ Lavazza coffee (from RMB8 10) - diners can tag this ridiculously low-priced beverage on to their equally wallet-positive set lunch (they start at ~RMB30 38).

Sequoia Cafe’s large American Coffee (RMB22) - a sizable mug of coffee from a micro-roaster in the U.S. that nicely washes down this place’s BLT. The staff is friendly here, though the disproportionate number of hard surfaces means it can get noisy. [Note: The Sanlitun Sequoia has closed; the other branches are on Guanghua Lu and in Shunyi.]

For those looking to enjoy the great outdoors, Aperitivo (you can watch the street life), Le Bistrot Parisienne (ditto), Les Tour des Jour (ditto II, though this place tends to blast music) and The Bookworm (a spacious rooftop) are other options.