Beijing Boyce

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I had insomnia last night, which is good, because I caught up on some work, and bad, because I needed extra juice today and that meant coffee. Unfortunately, the city seemed to conspire against my mission to have both caffeine and wireless, thus the journey to java took an all-too-long route…

Union Bar & Grille: When the history of twenty-first century Beijing is written, this place may end up with a special mention for the biggest gap between service on one hand and atmosphere, comfort, and quality food on the other — a kind of “the valley is low, the mountain is high” thing.*

I walked in, plunked down beside an acquaintance, plugged in the laptop, and, after waiting ten minutes, wondered if anyone would ever come over and take my order. My acquaintance had finished his coffee and needed a refill.

In the interest of research, we decided to wait it out. Fifteen minutes: nope. Twenty minutes: nope. I mean, there were employees present, on the other side of the restaurant– polishing glasses, having hushed discussions, gazing out the window–but it seemed as though our side was off limits. After twenty-five minutes, I decided, free refills or no free refills, it was best to move on to…

Blue Frog: Which I discovered was closed today until 5:30 PM for a special event. Fair enough. Since Double Coffee is now closed, and had spotty wireless during its last weeks anyway, I headed to…

Muse: “Hi, do you have coffee?” I asked as I entered. “Yes,” said a woman  I took to be a manager as she pointed toward where I might sit. “Great,” I said. Not seeing any outlets, I asked, “Is there any place I can plug in my laptop?” “No,” said a waittress. “Really? There isn’t one plug in this whole place?” I asked. “No,” confirmed the manager. Maybe that helps why the place was empty. Anyway, I next headed to…

Le Petit Gourmand:  I walked in, plunked down across from an acquintance, plugged in the laptop, and, after waiting ten minutes… wait, this sounds familiar. Except this time, the staff gave me a menu, I ordered a coffee, and a few minutes had my first sip. Even though we had to endure a visit from “The Whistler” — this is a guy that sometimes comes to LPG where he proceeds to whistle off-key to every song and on occasion pound the table as though it were a pair of bongo drums–I had my earphones and, more importantly, at long last a coffee…

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*People ask why I keep frequenting Union given I often write about the spotty service. It is because I like the seating, the food (especially the wings, Reuben, and eggs Benedict), the new TV screens, the free coffee and iced tea refills, and talking to Andy at the bar. I also like the employees in general–I simply wish they would take my order and bring me cutlery.

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I have known about shochu joint G-Zou in Sunshine 100 for a long time, but only made my first visit last night. The delay is due partly to  inertia and partly due to memories of forced drinking sessions in South Korea that involved tossing back shot after shot of buck-a-bottle rotgut soju until someone puked or passed out. I mean, wouldn’t it have been more fun to go bowling?

Anyway, my visit to G-Zou last night happily involved better liquor and more discipline. The shochu we tried hailed from Japan, had an alcohol content halfway between wine and vodka, and was made with, well,  everything in the kitchen but the sink it seems.

I tried shochu made with taro (smelled somewhat like cheap tequila), chestnuts (smelled like dry husks), and seaweed (smelled fishy and tasted a bit “slimy” as Mr Hao put it but was somewhat refreshing in the way a cool seaweed soup can be) as well as a floral one made from a vegetable the name of which I did not catch. There was also shochu made from sesame, sweet potato, soba, peanuts, and other items — I’ll give these a try on the next visit.

G-Zou also has food. My favorite item: the Okinawan favorite “taco rice“. This consists of a bowl full of  rice, lettuce, beef, chopped tomatoes, and taco sauce, with a fried egg on top. Habanero Tabasco sauce is provided for those who want to spice things up. All we needed were some taco shells to stuff this into.