Beijing Boyce

Part six of a series on where Beijing residents enjoy a beverage (or two). This round is with entrepreneur, IT specialist, and former full-time bartender Badr Benjelloun.

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“Beijing has changed a lot over the past few months and the Olympics have left a scar on the face of the city’s drinking establishments. However, some bars / restaurants have managed to consistently get my patronage.

1. Salud: I’ve been going there over the past few months quite consistently. I love the atmosphere, the homemade rum, and the mix of locals and expats. It’s a bit of a pain to get there from my area but completely worth it. Add the great environment in Nanluoguxiang, with the hutongs and the locals, and you get a great experience!

2. The Rickshaw: Yes, they have a few service problems but overall that’s been the place that got most of my drinking moolah the past few years. I know almost everyone in there and it makes it comfortable. It’s my local basically! The grub is nice and they still make great quesadillas and serve one hell of a stiff drink. The owner, Kris, has been around for a while in the Beijing scene and deserves a lot of credit. The current manager, Andy, bends backwards to make sure everyone is happy.

3. Peter’s Tex Mex: A bit weird to include this one in my list of watering holes, but when I want good value, this is where I go. Best Tex-Mex in Beijing bar none and they have a great selection of wines at prices slightly above supermarket rates. The staff is friendly, the place is clean, and it’s a nice quiet hideaway.

4. Wain Wain: One of the city’s best-kept secrets. Hard to beat for a little mid-week beverage overlooking the city lights in a cosy environment. They have practically doubled their prices for the Olympics but still run some pretty good specials.

5. Kokomo and Q Bar: These two are tied because they are the only two places to make a decent Mai Tai which is one of my two favorite drinks. Kokomo even offers two varieties, an authentic one and a Hawaii Mai Tai. Q makes a hybrid Mai Tai that just rocks and had they managed to keep their patio opened longer, they would be in sole possession.

Posthumous mention: Maggie’s. Spare me the jokes here! Despite the shady nature of the establishment, they offered a great mix of atmosphere and DJing night in and night out! The cocktails were solid and affordable when compared to some of these new places opening left and right.

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Previously:
Elisabeth Tchoudjinoff & Katrina Arndt, designers
Paul Adkins, entrepreneur
Chandler Jurinka, Local Noodles
Kevin Shen, T3 Terminal
Steven Schwankert, SinoScuba

p3wong scored tickets to yesterday’s China Open where we – and “we” almost seems accurate given the light crowd – saw Ana Ivanovic beat Alize Cornet after a scrappy second set went to tiebreaker. Far less enjoyable: the food and drink at the stadium.

We started at Element Fresh, where sandwiches (actually half-sandwiches) cost RMB20 per. With the bread anything but fresh, I decided to forgo the RMB20 coffee and take my cash elsewhere. I headed to Paris Baguette, spotted an RMB15 coffee on the menu, and joined a short lineup. Upon reaching the front, I sadly learned that no such beverage was to be had. That led me to a third venue, Peter Pan, where I saw the patron ahead of me order coffee and receive a tiny topless plastic cup of brown liquid.

At this point, I began to wonder why three food and beverage outfits would go to the time, expense and trouble of setting up booths at such an event only to provide products and/or services of a far lower level than one would expect at their establishments proper. I can understand a slight drop in quality given logistics, but this went beyond that. Frankly, if that half-sandwich were my first experience of Element Fresh, why would I go out of my way to visit the place again?

As I pondered this, relief beckoned in the distance – the smiling face of Colonel Sanders. I finally secured a coffee: small but piping hot, and in a cup with a top, for RMB5.5 at KFC. A taste test revealed it to be cheap, drinkable and reliable – exactly what I might expect and what would make me head to KFC first if I should ever see these four places lined up at an event again.

Remember last fall when Cafe St. Laurent (now Boheme) announced it would screen NHL hockey on Sundays, then pulled the ultimate “delay of game” and never showed a single match? And then how Paddy O’Shea’s picked up some (slightly blurry) games off the Internet about six months later during the playoffs (thanks Glenn!)?

Well, there is additional hope this year for puck fans as the Goose and Duck is planning to show hockey (also known as The Best Game You Can Name). Things are still in the works as the G n’ D is fine-tuning the feed before dropping the puck (fair enough). I’ll have more details soon and, in the meantime, I’m preparing my stash of Tim Horton’s coffee for action.

By the way, “the best name you can name” is from the lyrics of The Hockey Song by Stompin’ Tom Connors:

Hello out there! We’re on the air,
It’s Hockey Night tonight;
Tension grows, the whistle blows,
And the puck goes down the ice.
The goalie jumps, and the players bump,
And the fans all go insane;
Someone roars, “Bobby scores!”
At the good old hockey game.

There is also a book of the same name, by Dave Bidini, who spoke at The Bookworm some time ago. The book is an entertaining mix of his ongoing love of hockey (he plays in a recreational league) and a series of interviews with ex-NHL players who played pro hockey a decade or more ago, and it touches on the lighter side of the game as well as sports violence, the hardships of being in the minor leagues, and the intense pre-1989 Russian-North American rivalry, which often had political overtones. For instance, these comments by coach Gary Green:

Canada-Russia was always intense, but Russia-America had its own dynamic. We were supposed to play the Russians when I was coaching the Capitals, but with the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and the Americans’ reaction to it, they wanted to back out. They were holed up in their hotel rooms; people had called in bomb threats. There was major security around them. They had a phone installed on my bench, and told me that if that phone range during the game, I was to get my team off the ice right away. During the national anthem, I looked up and there were SWAT teams with snipers positioned in the upper rafters. The Capitals fans booed the Russian anthem all the way through. If we hadn’t tied the game — using a system that Scotty Bowman helped me develop — there would have been hell to pay. Who knows what would have happened.

Of course, much of the book is much lighter, as these comments by player Steve Ludzik reveal:

My first game in the NHL was with the ‘Hawks in Quebec City. During the game, I couldn’t understand why the whole bench was standing up every time the Nordiques took a slapshot from the blue line. I finally asked Tom Lysiak why this was happening, and he said, “Because our goalie, Tony O [Esposito], can’t see the puck that far away.”

See also:
Get your NHL and NBA on: Part II
Hoop, hockey dreams: NBA all-star game Monday morning, HNIC update
Hockey morning in Beijing: ANOTHER delay of game
Hockey morning in Beijing: Another delay of game
Delay of Game: CSL Hockey Morning in Beijing postponed one week
Ice Time: Hockey Morning in Beijing
Ice Time: Hockey Night in Beijing!