Beijing Boyce

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 (RMB8) - diners can tag this ridiculously low-priced beverage on to their equally wallet-positive set lunch (they start at ~RMB30).

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.

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.

With his “I’m Beyonce” episode a distant memory, I hit the town with Special K on Sunday. Here’s a roundup of spots we visited that, on second reading, kind of comes off as a rant. I blame the pollution.

Café St. Laurent
CSL draws a strong Sunday brunch crowd, but would do well to reduce the clash between the quality of the food and drink and the décor - savory eggs Benedict versus sitting on emaciated cushions stippled with cigarette holes; tasty Cappuccino versus gazing at a dirty plastic roof; etc. It’s time to upgrade those seats (try Carrefour, it shouldn’t be too busy these days) and unravel the garden hose. Then again, maybe I’m grouchy because a waiter passed a full glass of water over my laptop and spilled some on it.

The Saddle Cantina
Given the squalls of tree fluff in the New Nali Studio courtyard, we grabbed a table inside the bar. Unfortunately, the staff defeated our efforts by inexplicably opening and closing the retractable rooftop several times thus letting in more of the stuff. Were they bored? Is the roof fun to open? Is tree fluff - which tends to have a magnetic attraction to cocktails - considered festive in Beijing and/or Mexico?

The staff is likable at The Saddle Cantina and sibling establishment The Rickshaw but service, while usually OK, can be sketchy. Too often orders get mixed up or misunderstood, no one is able to work the satellite dish, employees compare cell phone rings instead of paying attention to customers, and so on.

This raises the great mystery of service in Beijing: how can it be good at a relative newcomer like Kro’s Nest and such a struggle at The Rickshaw, Saddle, Revelations, and others? For example, I had lunch at Revelations on Monday- there were about ten tables of people, which only represented about a third of capacity. Even so, the staff needed to reconfirm our order several times, forgot the bread, brought my dish 15 minutes before those of my companions, responded to the confusion over my coffee request by repeating themselves at increasing volume. That said, this spot offers arguably the best-value lunch deal in town, so you take the good with the bad.

OK, rant over.

To return to The Saddle Cantina: Special K found his Mango Mojito weak, while I was impressed with /recommend the Pina Colada Margarita. RMB40 is a pricey for a bottle of Corona, though OK for a literally ice-cold pint of Stella. I can hardly wait to see how this place’s home brew turns out.

Luga’s
With not a seat to be had outside, we sat in the new section of the bar, which formerly housed a Xinjiang restaurant that reader ET says had good dapanji and the best noodles in town (by the way, don’t be surprised if there is further expansion of Luga’s). We shared an order of beef nachos and chicken quesadilla, both tasty, and enjoyed a few Coronas. Always one to experiment, Special K stuck his finger in the bottle - I take it that he was fishing for the lime slice - and couldn’t get it out. Luckily, the miracle of mechanics (translation: a lot of pulling) allowed him to eventually free it.

The Smugglers
Special K liked the series of small narrow rooms, the sturdy beer house-style tables and benches, and the posters, finding the place simple but pleasant, though a bit quiet (we were the only patrons). The drinks are cheap (RMB25 for a Margarita, RMB10 for a juice) and the portions are small, while the beer specials are good value.

Kokomo
With the winter roof removed just that afternoon, we enjoyed a stiff breeze beneath the stars. Sam Adams at 35 kuai a pop is nice, though the experimental Champagne Mojito needs more time in the lab. The Christmas-type lights above the bar clash with the candlelight at the table - am I supposed to come here to part-tay or chill out? Expect some summer drink specials from this place.

The Boat
People must have been on shore leave, because only a handful of patrons were on board. Then again, it was late Sunday night. The Boat includes upper and lower decks, ample seating and a dance floor. It’s a cool idea, and I’ll return on a busier night to check it out. By the way, it was nice to see generous space devoted to toilets - this saves guys peeing over the side against a headwind.

They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But you can go hungry even if you have money.

I popped into The Rickshaw yesterday at noon for Taco Tuesdays (three tacos for RMB40 with good portions of sour cream and salsa). I went upstairs and found a construction crew buzzing and pounding near the pool table, so I retreated downstairs, grabbed a chair, and popped open the laptop.

I called the manager to find out what was going on and learned that the place was closed. I missed the sign on the door as did everyone else - more than a dozen people – who showed up during the 20 minutes I sat there. Anyway, The Rickshaw should have its side deck opened and be back to normal hours from 4 PM today

Since tacos were not in my immediate future, I decided to go to nearby Revelations. I phoned ahead to see if the wireless was working - last time, it wasn’t - and was told it “should be.” It wasn’t.

I packed up my laptop again and went to Sugar, in 1949: The Hidden City. The place had wireless and food, seemingly a rare combination on this day. I had chicken Caesar salad (RMB32) and a coffee (RMB25), both of which were good. The wait staff is a bit over-attentive and unable to recognize English words such as “water” and “toilet”, but is friendly enough. What is annoying is getting the bill and finding a 10 percent service charge… at a cafe.

Today, I planned to go to Café St. Laurent for lunch. Luckily, I called ahead because the place is closed while the kitchen and menu are overhauled. CSL will open this weekend. Fortunately, the eggs Benedict will remain on the menu although there will be a few new twists to the recipe.

I headed for The Saddle Cantina, then remembered it is not open for lunch during weekdays, and redirected myself to Luga’s. This place is also under construction. I saw a patron eating a burrito, but didn’t see any employees. I yelled “hello” and went back to the kitchen, where everyone was crouched over the floor intensely discussing something, so I left.

For the third time in two weeks, I ended up at Sequoia Café (Sanlitun branch). The BLT (RMB30) is delicious and comes with soup, and a large American coffee (RMB22). Fortunately, there is no service charge. The only downside: Sequoia is full of hard surfaces and thus loud at times.

The Cellar Rat and I dropped into Cafe St. Laurent / Alfa a few days ago to find the latter undergoing renovations, with work being done on the floor and bar. According to management, it is part of Alfa’s annual makeover and the popular eighties night is on as usual tonight. “Let’s hope the renovations include changes to the bathroom,” sniffed The Cellar Rat, a sentiment I - with plugged nose - second.

By the way, Alfa serves up some good food for those in need an energy boost after hours of dancing to Boy George, Madonna, and the like. The roast chicken and the pineapple shrimp are both tasty eats.

At The Rickshaw and just caught the NBA three-point shooting and slam dunk contests - the “birthday cake” dunk, with Gerald Green putting a cupcake with lit candle on the back of the rim, then taking a pass from a teammate, leaping up, blowing out the candle and stuffing the ball was priceless.

Anyway, according to The Rickshaw management, you can catch the NBA All-Star game at 9:20 AM tomorrow (Monday).

Go Bosh!

The Rickshaw is also looking into showing Hockey Night in Canada games on Sunday mornings (they are shown Saturday night in Canada). In early December, Cafe St. Laurent / Alfa advertised this event, but - shades of that NHL-less season a few years back - didn’t come through.

I hope to have more details on these HNIC games in the next week or so.

In the meantime, and as usual, keep your stick on the ice…

Some like it hot, some like it spicy, and p3wong likes her Bloody Mary to be both, and with a pinch of celery salt to boot. Friday night, we chilled out in the upstairs lounge at Nearby the Tree, tried a Bloody Mary - yes, we’re aware this spot is known for Belgian beer - and discussed how her favorite drink fares in this city.

“They never use celery salt [in Bloody Marys] in Beijing,” she says. “A lot of places are also stingy on Worcestershire sauce.”

So, what spots does she recommend?

“Redmoon Bar (Hyatt). They use enough Worschestire sauce and put in cherry tomatoes.”

“Lan - the Sichuan Mary is spicy.”

“[The former] Icehouse [where she once worked as GM]; I could tell the staff exactly how I wanted it made.”‘

“The Bookworm - it has an interesting one. I think they make their own juice because it comes out pinkish.”

“I haven’t tried The Vineyard Cafe yet, but I heard they have a ‘do it yourself’ Bloody Mary and I like that idea.”

How about Face? “Okay, but it seems a little bitter, so I’m wondering if they use pepper vodka.”

Block 8? “They must have the worst one. They shake it with the ice and it gets too watery.”

Aria? “The first one I had there, I could only taste tomato juice. The second one had a lot of vodka but not much flavor.”

Centro? “They’re bad. I was disappointed because I heard Bruce Li [now at Aria] was the best bartender. I don’t know if he made mine, but they weren’t good.”

As for the Bloody Mary at Nearby the Tree, here’s p3wong’s take: “It could be better with celery salt, Worcestershire sauce and more tomato juice.” At any rate, it’s a cozy place to chat and there’s plenty of beer and wine as an alternative.

Here are a few my current and past favorite places for a Bloody Mary:

Café St. Laurent: Its ‘Asian Mary’ includes wasabi and soya, a rim salted with nori, and pickled asparagus, a cherry tomato and a prawn as garnish. It comes in a 12-ounce glass, without ice, so it doesn’t get watery. CSL will soon have Bloody Caesars, made with Clamato rather than tomato juice.

Press Club Bar: The menu includes a half-dozen Bloody Mary variations, including one with Qingdao beer; tasty but pricey. (Note: I hear the St. Regis Hotel, which houses The Press Club Bar, is undergoing some renovations, so I’ll visit soon and check this out.)

Before closing, The Big Easy made a nice Bloody Mary.

Joop Shen, who’s worked at China Doll, The Bank* and (most recently) Mingle over the past year, is moving to Project H, a large restaurant, lounge and deck development in Sanlitun’s Nali Studio that management says will open by the end of January. Shen will serve as general manager.

Billy Kawaja, executive chef at the Canadian Embassy, is also on board at Project H and will head up the French-Chinese restaurant, the Asian tapas menu in the lounge and the grill menu on the deck. Kawaja is known best for his brunch menu at Café St. Laurent.

Meanwhile, the management behind Project H, which runs establishments such as Alfa and Le Hugo, plans to open a second Muse in Nali as well as a strip of five bars nearby. More details on the latter to come soon.

* A series of SMS messages from The Bank announces that pole dancing will be featured every Friday night.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your zambonis.

As noted over a month ago, our fair city will soon feature a weekly Hockey Morning in Beijing (see Hockey Night in Canada for the inspiration behind the name).

The puck drops on December 2 at Alfa / Café St. Laurent.

Oyster omelets, bottomless Tim Hortons coffee, Bloody Caesars  - Canuck Chef Billy K is lining up a Great White North menu. Hockey Morning in Beijing - Sundays, from 8 AM to noon, meaning you can catch both games. Let’s hope Alfa cues up Stompin’ Tom (the must-see video is here):

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 ole hockey game.

Fifty Mission Cap by The Tragically Hip would be good, too.

In the meantime, keep your stick on the ice.

Spencer Grey Group, which runs Alfa, Muse, Café St. Laurent and Le Hugo, among other Beijing establishments, will soon open Project H, a one-thousand-square-meter bar, restaurant, lounge, and patio complex on Sanlitun North. I spoke to company bigwig Blane Kieng about current and upcoming projects.

Why did you get into the bar business and why Alfa?
I started Muse [a Chaoyang West restaurant] in May 2003, during SARS. It was doing well and we constantly had people eating there and then asking us if they could leave their car so they could pop down to Suzie Wong’s for a drink. I thought that if I could get them for dinner, why not for drinks?

I looked for a location and checked out the space that is now Purple Haze (across from Gongti North). It had a very shi shi design by a well-known artist. I didn’t want to throw out the design, but it wasn’t working. We went to the next hutong for a drink, to a bar called Emergency Room, and someone said, “Why not buy this place?” I took it over and started to do my own thing.

Why did you call the place Alfa?
I wanted a name that easily translated into English and Chinese - I wanted both crowds (foreigners and locals). In terms of the logo, Alpha means first and I also thought that since it started with “a”, it would be listed near the beginning of most directories. I used Alfa instead of Alpha, because graphically it looked better.

What were some of the milestones in Alfa?
Six months in we started the 80s nights. It was not that successful at first - we drew a lot of expats but not many locals. Three years later, many people have heard those 80s songs many times and know how to dance to them.

The following March we redesigned the patio and changed it from an open space to a designed space. We added beds and running water, gave it a Southeast Asia resort feel, and it took off.

We redesigned the interior the next fall. Before it was like a cave. We improved the layout and extended the upper floor, so that the place would carry us over the winter periods.

The next year, we made steady progress, and then in the third year [this year] we redid the patio [which included enclosing it]. It has been a runway success. Café St. Laurent [which uses the Alfa space for Sunday brunches] has helped expand the market and the 80s nights this summer have come into their own.

What does the Alfa crowd drink?
Mostly cocktails - it’s a casual and relaxed atmosphere from Sunday to Thursday, and raucous on the weekends. Expats tend to go on Fridays and locals on Saturdays.

Your new effort, Project H, sounds a lot like Block 8.
It’s pretty much the same concept. We will have a restaurant, a bar, a club, and a patio and rooftop garden in one venue. We’re shooting for an atmosphere where people know each other. It’s a place you will go to see and be seen and also to meet people you know.

We’re shooting for a crowd that wants nice food, nice drinks and good service. Cocktails will be 50 to 60 kuai. Where Alfa is now - we want to move it up a notch.

What would you say to those who think Sanlitun is too seedy?
That’s the old Sanlitun. The new Sanlitun, on the north and south sides, will be different. It will have five-star hotels, Armani and LV shops - we’re going along with the development.

Even though Sanlitun is seedy now, the area surrounding it and the people living there are not. They are looking for a good meal, good drinks and a good patio. We’ll have the best patio in Sanlitun. It will have good views of Chaoyang Park and all the way south to Q Bar.

When will Project H open?
We’ll open the fifth floor [restaurant, bar and lounge] the first week of January. From January until spring festival will be the soft opening. The full launch will come afterward and the rooftop will open mid-April.

Providing good service in Beijing is a major challenge. How will you deal with this?
A large percent of our effort is having better staff and training, training, training. You have staff focused on the short-tem, looking for a higher salary next month. The best we can do is offer good salaries, treat the staff well, and provide benefits like a good atmosphere. Our staff will work somewhat on a commission basis in order to provide incentives.

What are your favorite drinks and watering holes in Beijing?
I’m a big martini drinker and I judge a place by how well it makes them - I like a dirty gin martini with three olives. Q Bar, Centro, Red Moon Bar, they make good drinks.

Note: Spencer Grey Group has a strip of four to five bars, also to be located in Sanlitun, in the works. I’ll have more on this later.

That’s the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it…

I checked out the third anniversary of Alfa’s eighties parties, held the Friday heading into vacation and it was… gnarly. Special K, who runs the brunch there every weekend as Alfa transforms into Café St. Laurent, made 800 Jell-O shots for the occasion. They were potent as only a drink concocted of three parts white Rum to two parts wiggly dessert would be.

The place was packed, a fun crowd, except for one guy, apparently working at Moet, who walked by our table, saw our Champagne bucket, picked up our bottle, saw it wasn’t from his firm, gave a disgusted look, put it down, and walked off. So fast I had no time to say, I love Moet! It’s the Budweiser of Champagnes!

Strangely enough, I’ve been to Alfa three times during the past month, but have yet to make it from the covered patio and into the bar.

In any case, I sat down with Alfa owner Blane the following Monday to ask him about a project known only as “H“. To sum up, he is taking over the top two floors of Nali studios, which will give him 500 meters of square space on one level - to be split between two restaurants and a club - and 500 meters of space on the roof. The latter should interest events organizers struggling to find decent downtown rooftop bars and restaurants that can hold more than 250 people.

Blane, who also runs several restaurants (including Muse) and has a discount card called Hedonist, aims to create what I can only describe as a “lifestyle empire.” I hope to post more about Project H as it comes along.

Finally, if you haven’t had the Café St. Laurent Asian Bloody Mary - with wasabi and soya sauce in the mix - it’s worth a try.

A meal in a glass

Tim Hortons coffee… oyster omelets… pancakes with maple syrup… Bloody Caesars (those would be with Clamato, rather than tomato, juice)… and (organ music) Hockey Night in Canada…

Canucks, hold onto your zambonis, because it appears Alfa / Café St. Laurent is about to make your dreams come true. I have been talking with Billy K, the brains behind the excellent CSL brunch, and plans are in the works to broadcast Hockey Night in Canada (Saturday night Canuck time, Sunday morning Beijing time) and throw down a breakfast to make those from the Great White North proud. It’ll be a kind of He shoots… he pours (the maple syrup) kind of thing.

Stay tuned for more details. And remember - keep your stick on the ice…

Note: A big shout to p3wong, who pitched this idea last year for ICEhouse (caps added due to hockey-related relevance).