Beijing Boyce

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American Rachel DeWoskin played the vixen in a 1995 TV drama called Foreign Babes in Beijing that was seen by as many as 600 million people in China. DeWoskin was a recent graduate of Columbia University, and only based in Beijing for a few months, when she was offered the role. She went on to juggle TV, her job at a foreign PR firm and the culture shock of being a newbie in the city. Not surprisingly, Dewoskin’s memoir, also called Foreign Babes in Beijing, covers both her experiences in making the show and adjusting to a new life.

A while back, I revisited a July 2006 post in which I listed 20 bars and restaurants in and around Sanlitun and how, four years later, only two had gone out of business due to poor performance. I have also gone through Foreign Babes in Beijing for references to bars and restaurants from the mid-1990s and found four of ten places mentioned by DeWoskin are still around while twoothers existed as recently as a few years ago, one of them apparently closing within the past month. Here they are…

Jazz Ya
DeWoskin: “a Japanese bar… cocktails with paper umbrellas in them….” This veteran in Nali Studio in Sanlitun is still considered by some to have good drinks, especially Long Islands. Owner Li Bo has since gone to open several Japanese restaurants as well as D Lounge.

Charlie’s Bar
Dewoskin: “in the Jianguo Hotel, with a Filipino band and salted peanuts.” During my first visit, in 2007, I found the place newly renovated but sticking by the free peanuts and (cheesy) Filipino band. Still open…

Metro Cafe
DeWoskin: “a new and crazily popular pasta place“. This place is still going strong on Workers Stadium West Road: try the homemade pastas.

Frank’s Place
DeWoskin describes it as “a laowai-owned greasy spoon across from the workers’ stadium.” The original closed about five years ago but the brand lives on in its second edition in Lido. The original Frank (Siegel) now runs the Sequoia cafe chain.

Nightman Disco
Word is that until a month ago, the night, the man, and the disco lived on. I’ll check more into this one…

Latino’s
DeWoskin: “offered salsa lessons”. When I arrived it was near Chaoyang Park’s south gate, beside The Big Easy, but after that space was rezoned it moved near Dongsishitiao, with the salsa ending there less than three years ago.

The Big Easy
DeWoskin: “served up fried chicken with New Orleans jazz belted out by a St. Louis singer named Jackie [Jacqui].” Good music and bloody good Bloody Marys–this place was chai’d about five years ago and is missed. Sadly, both Jacqui Staton and Big Easy founder Doug Monitto have gone to the big club in the sky.

Jamhouse
DeWoskin: “an alley bar”. Part of the old Sanlitun South Bar Street, it is long gone but fondly remembered by many. The remains lie somewhere beneath Sanlitun Soho.

Peking Chalet
“…in a broken alley off of North Sanlitun Road; now the lane is called jiuba jie, or bar street…. There were no streetlights, and the road in front of Peking Chalet was torn to shreds. Piles of broken glass littered the lane; the neighbors were so angry about the noise coming from the bar that they had thrown bottles.” Closed…

NASA
AFAIK, the last rocket took off long ago, though this site suggests what we are missing: “This high-caliber mega-disco has an army theme worth pondering. Just imagine this—an iron drawbridge, an army jeep that serves as a bar and a crashed helicopter that dangles overhead. This is one of the oldest and most venerable discos in Beijing. You are assured a good disco night out at NASA’s, especially if you can snag one of the free tickets hovering around town.”

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See also:

• Rachel DeWoskin: Foreign Babes in Beijing excerpt (2010)

• Something about Sanlituin II: The fate of 20 bars and restaurants four years on (2010)

• Something about Sanlitun (2006)

Rather than write a lengthy report about Saturday’s Food & Wine Experience at The Hilton, I thought it would be more fun to interview myself. Here we go:

Was that you on The Hilton’s marble steps standing in front of a broken bottle of wine?
It was. As I left, the paper bag provided by the organizers came unglued and a nearly full bottle of Heartland Dolcetto Lagrein fell out. The bottle exploded on the steps and attracted gawkers from far and wide. Fortunately, a half bottle of Heartland Shiraz stayed in the bag.

You mean you could buy wine there?
No. If you stay until the end of such events, sometimes the distributors give away opened bottles because they don’t want to waste them.

Why did you end up with Heartland?
I spent the last half hour at the Palette tables. I like Australian wines and Palette owner John Gai has an excellent portfolio. Palette’s Stefan Fleischer, as he did at this event two years ago, guided me through some lovely wines, particulary the Shiraz and Viognier.

What else did you like?
I liked the media session with wine writer Jeremy Oliver, supported by the Australian Wine & Brandy Corporation and ASC Fine Wines – I’ll write a separate post about it. He encouraged us to cover the top of our glasses with our palms and shake them – this gives wine a few hours’ worth of aeration. Make sure you have tissues handy if you try this at home.

Best of all was meeting winemakers, winery owners, distributors, writers and, especially, consumers. I met many people that I previously knew only by email, including Jennifer Zhang and Jessie Xiao at Summergate and Xavier Tondusson at Bacchus. Good to match faces with email addresses!

By the way, if logistically possible, I think the Champagne distributors should be in Zeta bar next year. It’s a perfect fit. I would also have the event run later into the afternoon.

Any disappointments?
I would love to see more countries better represented. As usual, pickings were meager from China (only Grace Vineyard), Austria, Portugal, Canada and some other nations. Having said that, we get more choice every year in Beijing, so overall I was happy with the selection.

However, I was disappointed at the light turnout Saturday. The event offered hundreds of wines and a buffet for 230 kuai – what more could you ask for? Compare this to Torres’ Taste of the Nations event last weekend: it offered far fewer wines but attracted a lot of attendees, even though it was only marginally cheaper.

Spreading the Food & Wine Experience over two days – the trade show was on Friday – might help explain the attendance. Some trade people could not attend Friday and gave tickets to friends or customers who might otherwise have come on Saturday. Next year, the hotel might also want to pair its traditional magazine ads with more marketing via e-mail and word-of-mouth, which is the key way many people get information about events.

I talked to four distributors about attendance and all of them were unhappy, especially as they had to pay for table space and provide staff, wine and literature for the event. On the other hand, 18 distributors participated and most didn’t seem to do much to promote this event, at least if my inbox is any indication.

Which distributors attended?
Eight companies had the vast majority of the 182 wine tables: ASC (27), Aussino, Jointek and Summergate (25 each), Jebsen (24), and H&L, Palette and Torres (12 each). Other distributors were: DT Asia (6), Metro (4), Bacchus and Pernod Ricard (2 each) and Ao Hua, Beijing GLP, East Meets West, Longfellows, Moet Hennessey Diageo and TBC – The Beverage Company (1 each). Montrose was notably absent. The other 12 tables featured food, glassware, wine accessories, magazines, and bottled water.

This breakdown suggests the Hilton might want to drop the “food” from “food & wine” in the event title.

So, was it worth it?
Definitely. As mentioned, hundreds of wines were available for tasting. A Shiraz lover could compare and contrast what each distributor offers – dozens of wines in total. If you like French wines, you could have tasted to your heart’s content. For ten years, this has been one of the wine events of the year for consumers in Beijing. You just need to ensure you have a sturdy bag if you stay until the end.

Note: Get my free e-newsletter about nightlife and wine in Beijing by sending an email to beijingboyce@yahoo.com with “sign me up” in the subject line. For more China wine info, join the Facebook group Grape Wall of China.