Beijing Boyce

Heaven help him? Get this man a vodka cream soda!

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A visit to gay club Stallion on Saturday night made me think a more appropriate name might be My Little Pony. No offense but this place is basically a three-room apartment that someone decorated in white and then added two bars, spartan furniture and a bunch of balloons. Given the name, I guess I expected something more charged. Like waiters wearing cowboy boots and pink ten-gallon Stetsons. Or a mechanical bull. To be fair, it is early days for this venue above Moroccan restaurant Argana, whose manager recently left and would no doubt be less than gay, er happy, with this turn of events, and the team is thus still getting its stable in order. Or perhaps I was too early (there were about a half-dozen customers, most of them in a tight circle, around 11:30 PM) and/or didn’t fit in due to improper attire (I came from the Migas funk party in a garish shirt that screamed Halloween). Anyway, I’ll stop by again in a week or two. In the meantime, expect juice and soda at rmb20, beer at rmb25, spirits at rmb30 and cocktails at rmb35.

Nearby in Sanlitun North, Patrick de Smet has completed a so-called Tree-some (drum roll) by branching out (cymbal crash) and opening a third bar in the area, on the second floor of the building across from the entrance of The Tree. It is called By the Tree and with Nearby the Tree completes the Tree-logy (second drum roll). This one is billed as a sports bar, given its pool table, foosball machine et al, and has a decor that will remind you of the first two places. When I visited on Friday, the menu from The Tree was in use, which means you can get pizza and Belgian beer to your stomach’s content.

Finally, a quick note re the liquor shop that is nearby Nearby the Tree, goes by the names Paradise and Heaven Supermarket and several weeks ago added stools and a half-dozen tables out front. It is hard to beat this place for sheer choice and price, and I sat there for several hours on Saturday with a group led by The Beijinger’s Jonathan White and Iain Shaw, who convinced us vodka and cream soda was a good idea. Besides witnessing the headaches of fixing a rickshaw (see photo above), we found the street out front to be a thoroughfare for people from the food and beverage scene, with reps from more than a half-dozen bars and restaurants by, not to mention more than a few stumbling journalists, some of whom ended up joining us. Call it the gray tarmac replacing the red carpet. More cream soda, anyone?

Last night, I went to new bar and lounge Sealing, across from the Worker Stadium West club strip, and watched as the staff made a house cocktail called Shy Girls. It looked quite appealing with those vibrant colors glowing through the glass sweat. I’m not sure exactly what is in it though I did see the bartenders add sparkling wine and Grenandine — and that fancy watermelon garnish. Anyway, I’ll have a fuller post on Sealing soon…

Gung Ho has teamed up with Jun Trinh, host of Who Stole My Kitchen and formerly head of the kitchens at Vietnamese restaurants Banh Mi Now and Pho Pho, on a new summer menu available as of Thursday. The menu includes three salads created by Trinh: a Vietnamese chicken salad that includes pumpkin, sweet potato and “coconut lime vinaigrette”, a Thai beef salad with spinach, and a tropical salad that includes pineapple, smoked tofu, coconut and shredded walnut. Gung Ho is also adding a spicy grilled beef pizza and a spinach pesto chicken pizza to its menu.

Note: I wrote last month that Trinh was involved in revamping the menu at Bar Blu; he is no longer involved there. More on Bar Blu in a separate post.

Three single malts from lesser-known producers, spotted and tried in Beijing…

Australia: I have wanted to try a Down Under whiskey ever since I saw the brands Lark and Bakery Hill listed in Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch. I finally had my chance a few weeks ago, though the bottle came from Sullivan’s Cove in Tasmania. I spotted it at Mao Mao Chong, decided RMB60 a reasonable price to try something new, and ordered a shot. To be honest, I had already consumed several drinks by this time, was halfway through a spicy Bloody Mao, and didn’t take careful notes, so all I have to report is “caramel”, “vanilla” and “crème brulee”. I do know I wanted more and would recommend anyone who is a fan of single malts but has not tried an Australian one to get to Mao Mao Chong while supplies – one half-finished bottle – last.

Sweden: Fate recently had me in the same bar as Fredrik Esbensen of Vandergeeten (distributor of Stella, Chimay and other Belgian beers) and had him with reps from Swedish single malt maker Mackmyra. Since I didn’t make the guest list for the recent Mackmyra party at The Single Malt Club, I readily agreed when the reps invited me to try their whiskey at the Swedish embassy’s national day party. (I have always associated Sweden with meatballs, but with pizza topped with corn and black olives? Who knew.)

The key  product was Mackmyra’s First Edition, which was first released in 2008 and uses both Swedish oak and Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey barrels. I picked up vanilla, citrus fruit and something between honey and butterscotch, with Mackmyra’s Sanna Danell, who patiently explained the distillery’s background while doling out drinks during a thunderstorm, summing it up as marzipan. This whiskey had a rounder body than I expected. I also tried some Mackmyra aged only in Swedish oak and found it more complex and with a longer finish. Danell says the company is working on the logistics of selling full barrels of Mackmyra in China. In the meantime, expect to see some of the bottled stuff about town.

Switzerland: Is Whisky Castle drinkable? Yes. Was the bottle of Whisky Castle I recently tried at Grinders drinkable? Nope. We were there because Mr Hao brought back a bottle of White Dog from Buffalo Trace (this one had more bite than bark, so to speak) and in the course of the evening ended up trying Whisky Castle courtesy of co-owner Chad Lager. Unlike with wine, I find it rare to encounter a bottle of whiskey that has gone off but this one smelled like a combination of wet cardboard and damp cellar. (Lager immediately discarded the bottle.) The distributor might want to look into this situation given this stuff wholesales for something like rmb700 per bottle. In the meantime, for those who want to try some, 1F also has a bottle in stock.

The bar at Temple

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I finally got a peak at Temple, the secluded project headed by former Maison Boulud GM Ignace Lecleir, near the National Art Museum and eateries such as Chengdu restaurant Shudu Binguan and newcomer Susu Vietnamese restaurant. Temple’s 80-seat restaurant will open later this year, said Lecleir, but the kitchen is in place and the venue is hosting private events for up to 250 people, with about a half-dozen on the schedule this month. I attended one yesterday, a tasting of Dr. Buerklin-Wolf wines from Globus, of which I’ll have more soon.

Chefs Castillo, Olabegoya, Sanllehy and Pascual

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If only the promotion boards of the many countries seeking to push their food and wine in China had the spirit of the team at Spanish restaurant Migas in Beijing. I will write more about this later but for now a quick note about the latest dinner this place is holding with three visiting chefs from Spain, who teamed up with Migas’ Aitor Olabegoya yesterday for an excellent butchery, sausage and pate making, and cooking demonstration (see photos below). The trio: Angel Pascual of Llucanes (which has a Michelin star for those into awards), Jean Pierre Castillo of Aunos de Vielha and a top butcher, and Carlos Sanllehy of Eth Restilhe de Garos and a specialist in sausages and pates. The dinner is tomorrow night (Saturday), includes nine dishes and three wines (click here for menu), is good value at RMB400, and focuses on foods from the Val D’Aran region in the Pyrenees. RSVP is essential: to book space, contact Sofia at 5208-6061 or sofia@migasbj.com.

Sausage making at Migas

Clam and butter beans at Migas

The wines for the night

It seems there is a hiccup in the Guinness supply chain as several Beijing bars, including Paddy’s Pit Stop and The Irish Volunteer, are reporting a shortage of this popular draft. They are focusing on other draft beers for now, with The Pit Stop counting Stella among its brews and The Irish Volunteer switching to Murphy’s Irish Stout. And some bars still have some Guinness in stock, including Paddy O’Shea’s and Union Bar & Grille. Word is that another Guinness shipment should arrive in Beijing in the next week or so….

Packed house at The IV

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More than 80 people showed up at The Irish Volunteer this morning to watch game seven of the NHL finals between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins. The Bruins scored four times while the Canucks went scoreless and figuratively pooped the chesterfield at home, thus making the game less exciting than it might have been, though most people — and we had a good number of fans of both teams — had a good time as they tucked into Big Bite breakfasts and drank Warthog Ale and other beers from Calgary’s Big Rock brewery, which Richard Liu helped secure from the Canada China Business Council. Even Dashan a.k.a. Mark Rowswell showed up for a refreshing beverage.

Elsewhere in Beijing, it sounds like Grinders drew a big crowd while The Box and Paddy O’Shea’s got their fair share of fans. (Word has it Karl Long of Paddy’s was offering free shots off his back for every Boston goal.)

A few photos from a morning at The IV…

The Big Bite Breakfast

Dashan in the house, er, outside the bar

A happy Bruins fan

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Before I get to which Beijing bars will show the deciding seventh game of the NHL finals tomorrow at 8 AM, some info for those who have yet to decide who to cheer for…

Why you should cheer for the Boston Bruins: They have not won the Stanley Cup since 1972 despite having been in the finals five times; they have the oldest player in the league, 43-year-old Mark Recchi, and it would be a nice retirement gift; they have outscored the Canucks 19-8 in the finals and deserve to win; how can you honestly cheer for a team with a logo that has evolved into this?

Why you should cheer for the Vancouver Canucks: They have never won the Stanley Cup in their 41-year history; the only time they made the finals, they lost by one goal in game seven; they finished with the most points in the regular season and deserve to win; they would be the first team based in Canada to win since 1993, although they have had fewer Canadians on their roster this year than the Bruins, and this might mean free maple syrup for everyone.

Deciding factor: Boston and area fans have seen their teams win championships in football (Patriots), basketball (Celtics) and baseball (Red Sox) in the past decade while Vancouver lost its NBA franchise to Memphis (Memphis!) and screwed up the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Cheer for the Canucks.

Here are the bars I have received info from re this year’s playoffs…

• Irish Volunteer: This place has been showing the NHL playoffs, and featuring the quips of American co-owner George Smith, for three straight years. This year it has drawn large crowds while retaining its Big Bite Breakfast and adding another screen and seating outside.
• Grinders: Also a big draw this year, with co-owner, Canadian, and Vancouver Canucks fanatic Trevor Metz giving a pint of Stella to every attendee every time his team scores.
• Frank’s Place: Now run by Canadian John Harkness, best known for his long stint as owner of sports bar Goose and Duck, this place offers more than a half-dozen screens.
• The Box: This tiny bar run by Canadian Arthur Hagopian offers both poutine and puck action.
• Paddy O’Shea’s: Reportedly the only Irish pub owned and managed by actual Irish people from Ireland, where the sport of hurling has (I hear) some similarities to hockey, it is close to the Canadian Embassy.

Until tomorrow, keep your stick on the ice…

(Photo: Bend Bulletin)

Q Bar will introduce an absinthe fountain in July as part of a promotion with Lucid Absinthe Supérieure from France. Says Q: “We’re serving it in the traditional ‘French Method,’ a flame-free preparation in which cold water is dripped over a sugar cube until the water is evenly displaced into the absinthe.” Q is also offering up to 45 percent off on a select list of cocktails from 6 PM to 9 PM, Monday to Thursday, throughout the summer.

Centro will close after this weekend to undergo several months of renovations. (Let’s hope the changes include direct access from the bar to the toilets so inebriated patrons no longer need stumble through the lobby.) The closing parties are today and tomorrow: invite-only from 7 PM to 10 PM, then open to all from 10 PM. According to a post on City Weekend, “Guests who love creative cocktails can participate in the ‘My Cocktail, I Decide’ auction, for the exclusive naming rights of five specially designed cocktails, which will feature in the new beverage menu of Centro after it re-opens.” More details here. Expect to see at least a few dazed and confused Centro regulars, and I define them as having at least 200 visits under their belts, wandering aimlessly around the Kerry Centre next Monday evening.

A few other items:

• Danish-owned restaurant and deli The Butcher’s Steakhouse closed earlier this year and is being replaced by… a Danish restaurant and cafe? That’s the word. And the new place is not a branch of Noma. More on this soon…
  
• Red Capital Club has started what it calls “reverse” happy hour: it offers a a 50 percent discount on drinks after 9 PM.
• Fubar is getting into climate control as a smoke extraction machine and two new air conditioners have been added.
• Word is that former Song lounge / club space in The Place will soon reopen with a new look and name. Not only that, but it will expand to include the former bookstore next door and  have a direct entrance.
• And Modo is introducing a new menu, including three ‘chef’s menus‘ of six to eight items for groups to share. As an example, one of the menus includes calamari salad, spinach and ricotta malfatti, crisp pork belly, braised lamb shank, smorrrebrod with smoked salmon, fish roe and more (are we seeing a Danish cuisine theme arising in Beijing?) and choice of dessert for RMB430. I’ll have more on this soon…

Notes from a trip to Hutong Hipsterville about a month ago…

Aluss is a relatively new gallery / café / event space named after one of the guys behind nearby Amilal. Unlike Amilal, this place focuses more on beer than whiskey: I spotted about 20 options, including Barney Flat’s Oatmeal Stout, at RMB30 to RMB40 per bottle. Like Amilal, it attracts translators like moths to a flame: get to know them and you might be able to swing  a discount on the Chinese-language version of your hutong memoirs. In any case, Aluss is an airy spot with table and bench seating, as well as a few plush chairs, and serves well as a place to plop down with your laptop and a large mug of coffee at RMB20. Expect occasional visitors to mosey around the photo / art displays and perhaps even assume you are part of an exhibition and thus read your work / email over your shoulder.

As it was after 7 PM, Aluss does not serve food, and I had not eaten all day, I wandered zombie-like a few doors down to Cat’s Eye Pizza. I tend to feel obligated to stay at a restaurant once I am seated and have a menu. But given that the food I spotted at neighboring tables suggested a possible pizza experience in The Origus Zone and the attitude of the waitress was less than inspiring – I pointed to the entry for chicken and said “ji rou bi sa”; she pointed below my finger and said “tu-na?” – I decided fate had given me a Get Out of Cat’s Eye for Free Card. For all I know, the pizza at Cat’s Eye is superb: anyone tried it?

Still famished, I crossed the street to Bratwurst. How hard can it be to get sausages right? Grind up some snouts and guts; mold them into tube form; cook. Anyway, this place is tiny (two small picnic-style tables — eight seats in total), has a sense of transience (orange plastic leaves scattered on the ceiling, a lone man-and-his-duck lawn sculpture in a corner), and on this night had drawn a diverse clientele (a man yelling on a phone, a woman wearing those devil horns that light up, and a foursome, one member of which – given the intense looks coming my way –  might not have seen a Caucasian before). I checked the menu (click photo above for bigger version) and picked a combo meal of Thuringer Bratwurst, roll, potato chips and soda for RMB23, and tacked on some potato salad (RMB10) and sauerkraut (RMB5) for good measure. Given a total bill of RMB38, this provided good filler, if nothing else, though the sausage would have been better if served in a moister bun and if the ketchup and mustard had not been pre-applied.

Reef Bar: Coincidentally, as I sauntered from Bratwurst down Nanluoguxiang, I saw the staff barbecuing sausages out front. They have two kinds at RMB15 or RMB20 respectively. This modestly sized place must have one of the highest ratios of alcohol brand signage to surface area, with the bling including Skyy Vodka, Hoegaarden, Guinness, Budweiser and Tsingdao.

It didn’t get many nods in this year’s The Beijinger bar awards but one consolation for 12SQM is that it seems perpetually busy with a mix of regulars, occasional imbibers and tourists. (I wonder how many people came here after playing with those touch-screens in the back of some taxis, clicking the “bar” section, and finding 12SQM as the first entry.) I ordered a Coopers Pale Ale and, since co-owner Joseph Kornides was off work, listened with skepticism as stand-in bartender Tanner claimed to be a Sade fan. Hmmm. By the way, if Kornides is on premise, there is always the potential for conflict should someone happen to use the toilet for anything other than flushing liquids. To wit:

Dude (returning from toilet): Um, there is something wrong with the toilet.

JK: What do you mean wrong?

Dude: There is a metal strainer-type thingy in the bottom that keeps everything from flushing.

JK: What do mean everything?

Dude: You know.

JK: No, I don’t know. I repeat: what do you mean everything.

Dude: Like… the solids?

JK: That screen is meant to indicate that solids should not be put in the toilet. People should look at that screen and think, “If I put solids in the toilet, they will not go down.” Did you not see the sign outside the toilet that says “no shitting”?

Dude: Yeah, but only after I went.

JK: I am now going to take this full bottle of Canadian Club and beat you to death like a baby seal. Assume the position.

Lucky Man: This bar is known for its whiskey and a bar that is known for its whiskey and lists whiskey cocktails should be reasonably good at making an Old Fashioned — at least that is my theory. So, I ordered one. And it sucked. And it cost RMB60.

I didn’t taste like it had any sugar in it. And it was watery and came with what might best be described as ice pebbles rather than ice cubes. I’m not sure what happened since the bartender made the drink on the far side of the bar where I could not see, and he had the ayi bring it over, but I would guess my long wait meant either he left it sitting out far too long or stirred it that entire time. I didn’t feel like a Lucky Man or even like an Unlucky Man but like an Initially Disappointed and Ultimately Annoyed Man Who Hoped the Bartender Would Eventually Come Over and Check on Me But Never Did Because Apparently He Only Had Enough Strength and Willpower to Handle the Other Four Patrons in the Place. By the way, I like the design of this place, from the large sliding door to the three-sided bar, but if I go back I will probably stick with whiskey.

I ended with a visit to Tushuguan 98 but I’ll cover that in a separate post…

Dinner at The Wall: An aerial view

I have attended two dinners on The Great Wall. The first, some three years ago, cost me RMB10000. The second, some three weeks, cost me nothing. The difference: I didn’t eat at the second but instead joined the Hilton Beijing staff as it catered for nearly one thousand diners at the Ju Yong Guan section. The reason: the hotel’s food and beverage manager, Simon Amos, saw my post about a lunch for 6500 people and thought I would find it interesting to see his team in action. He was right.

Organizing such a dinner is no easy feat. On that day, it meant delivering mountains of food as well as some twenty large heating and chilling units in which to store it; bringing thousands of glasses, dishes and utensils and dozens of tables, tablecloths and centerpieces; ensuring that everything from the parking to the sound and lighting systems to the stage to the two open bars were ready to go. It also meant ordering hundreds of lunch boxes to feed the 280-strong team – call it catering for the caterers – before they in turn fed those hundreds of guests.

When I arrived at the Great Wall with a busload of chefs just before 3 PM, some employees had already been on site since the morning. We saw people busy with tasks that ranged from polishing 3000 wine glasses under the hot sun to getting as much prep work done as possible in a huge tent turned into a kitchen to showing the 100 employees hired only for that day how to ensure smoothly delivery of the 790 Chinese, 120 Indian, 15 vegetarian and one gluten-free multi-course meals.

Once the dinner started, the emcees took over: announcements were made, music was played (I doubt I will ever again “Everybody Dance Now” in such surroundings) and lasers shot out from the main tower as the attendees marveled at several miles of Great Wall illuminated in silver and gold. Meanwhile, plate after plate left the kitchen. While a sense of urgency welled at times, it never developed into panic, and the term “in the zone” applied as the kitchen team led by chef Christian Bruhns methodically worked through the dinner schedule and the service staff delivered thousands of loaded plates, brought back thousands of empty ones, and poured thousands of drinks.

But here is what struck me most — and I am not exaggerating because the time stamps from my camera stand as evidence. I left the tent after taking several photos of the servers taking out dessert. When I returned less than 20 minutes later, I found much of the kitchen dismantled. Thus, before many of the attendees had raised their last fork, for the chefs dinner proper was already over…

2999 glasses to polish on the wall, 2999 glasses...

The first Manhattan at Home Plate

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Before I recap last night’s visit to Home Plate, a new brisket, ribs et al restaurant that is creating quite a bit of buzz among the city’s BBQ fans, let me first do a one-question quiz: Where does this joint get its name?

a) From the beef industry, where a “home plate” is the iron brand that a particular ranch sears into cattle so as to indicate ownership.

b) From baseball, where reaching “home plate” means scoring a run and which, like southern-style BBQ, is very American.

c) From the town of the same name, near Memphis, Tennessee, the birthplace of of Home Plate co-owners Seth Grossman and Adam Murray.

d) From the first business the pair started, which saw them travel to apartments about Beijing to braid, weave, cornrow etc their customers’ hair, and which was called Home Plait.

e) From a 90 meter-wide plateau on Mars, because the tag line at Home Plate is, “Our food is out of this world.”

f) I have no idea.

If you picked f), call yourself a winner!

Anyway, I have heard lots of positive talk about Home Plate and several friends have already made multiple visits. Comments to my previous post, made less than two weeks ago, include “amazing cheese fries with brisket”, “Gotta try the corn dog there! Best I have ever had” and “Very authentic BBQ, really delicious and very reasonably priced.” I realize it is very early to get giddy and that this spot needs to fine-tune its food and service but things are off to a good start.

Nine of us met there last night to try that food. I shared a combo platter (RMB88) with DZ: it included two kinds of meat, with corn bread, and two side dishes. I enjoyed both the well-smoked ribs and the potato salad because neither was drenched in sauce or dressing and thus gave play to the meat and vegetables, though those ribs were very dry – almost jerky-like — and, yes, I do realize some people like them that way. My favorite item of the night was the succulent pulled pork — I could eat plate after plate of this. The corn dog (RMB12), an impressive size, and the chili cheese fries (RMB25), which I tried on my first visit, elicited the biggest “wows” at our tables as we engaged in food bartering during the night.

We experienced a few service glitches, as but one waitress worked the floor with Grossman, and a worker with a pneumatic drill was doing some drilling inside although the annoyance was thankfully short-lived, but this was offset by the good value of the food, the friendliness of the owners, and the sense of relaxation that came from sitting outside on that relatively quiet strip and sipping pints of Tsingtao (RMB10) and bottles of American beers such as Brooklyn and Dead Guy (RMB40). We also witnessed what Grossman and Murray said was their first cocktail: a Manhattan made with Jim Beam small batch that has already inspired me to plan a return visit….

Note: We were at Home Plate for a “tweetup“, essentially a gathering of micro-bloggers. I organize one every month or two, with previous venues including Nasca Cafe, George’s, Q Bar, Blue Frog and the Bomb Shelter Bar. You can follow this blog on Twitter here or on Sina weibo here.)

Pulled pork, plus...

Guitar meets piba at Flamenco night.

Beijing is a bull market for Spain given the number of restaurants that have opened, the quick rise in the number of wine labels, and the increase in promotions — from visiting chefs to tapas tours — over the past few years. The most recent effort: Flamenco night at Nali Patio last Sunday.

A handful of Nali restaurants ran food stands while a makeshift stage featured Flamenco performances, including one with traditional Chinese musical instruments. I arrived for the last hour and found the place crowded. Friends says that even more people were packed into the space earlier and cited confusion at the food stands, with some giving out free samples and others requiring a ticket or cash. Maybe we can call this one a qualified success. In any case, I’m looking forward to what else the Spanish community has up its sleeve.

A team effort at Nali (image: Nali Patio)

Look for the influx of whiskey brands to continue into China. I recently tried single malts from Australia, Sweden and Switzerland and will have more on these soon but for now a note on several products that importer / distributor Dxcel — also known for supplying beers such as Brooklyn Lager, Estrella and Moosehead — says it will soon stock. These include Templeton Rye from Iowa, which should be available within a week, Fighting Cock Bourbon from Kentucky, which is being seen as an alternative to Jack Daniels / Jim Beam and should be here within a month, and and High West from Utah, which will take a bit longer to arrive. I had a chance to try these last two at The Loop a month ago and am curious to see how bars react to the cost-effective Fighting Cock…

Fubar co-owner Chad Lager and manager Xiao Ming are leading the charge /  planting a flag / starting a second front in Sanlitun  with a bar called Revolution that will open just to the west of Yashow Market. It will have seating for about 30 people and a drink list that includes four drafts, ten highballs, ten pint-sized drinks and a half-dozen beer cocktails. The highlights will include The Red Snapper, essentially a Bloody Mary with gin instead of vodka, and Korean snacks, including kimbap and bibimbap, something I have been asking for in my Give a Crap Reports. The team is aiming for a June 10 launch but says it will be open next week for sure.

Hot off the grill.

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Update: Some pretty creative — and randy — entries to the contest but in the end it comes down to a draw and luckily, as I escaped the heat and enjoyed the bottomless iced tea at Union, I spotted Christina Riglet, who handles PR for Modo and Mosto, and who kindly witnessed that the pick was made fair and square. For each comment, I wrote the name of the person making it on a piece of paper, put all of the papers in a glass, and asked Riglet to randomly pull one out. The winner  “Daniel Larusso”. The prize: a RMB500 gift certificate to Flamme that can be used for food and drink, including the new 750-gram bone-in rib-eye steak. And I can guarantee Flamme has air conditioning…

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How hot is it?

That’s all you have to tell us and you’re entered in the draw for a RMB500 gift certificate to try the new menu* at Flamme: The Ultimate Steak in Sanlitun Village. The new menu includes more than a dozen new food items, including a 750-gram rib-eye, as well as new cocktails, including the refreshing Queen’s Park Swizzle.

Anyway, if you ask me, it’s pretty darn hot. Hotter than two rats making mad love in a wool sock. Hotter than a nuclear bomb going off in an erupting volcano. Hotter than Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman making out in Black Swan. Yeah, it’s that hot.

Leave a comment and tell us how hot it is. You can enter as many times as you want. The deadline is noon on Friday and I’ll announce a winner that afternoon. By the way, I’m still holding prizes from a couple of previous contests: I’ll be in contact with the winners so we can arrange drop-off in the next few days.

* You don’t have to spend it on the new menu but it would be nice if you tried some items and let us know what you think since Flamme has been nice enough to provide a gift certificate.

One of my first regular haunts when I moved to Beijing was First Cafe, a cozy two-floor cocktail bar in a small building that once stood behind what is now Terra. Run by Keiko Shirata and Roger Houng, it employed two up-and-coming bartenders — Echo Sun and George Zhou — who were just getting into martinis. They would later leave to open Midnight next door and then the very successful Q Bar up the street before a split last year saw Zhou leave and open George’s at Workers Stadium. Now, five years after opening atop the Eastern Inn, and after many memorable nights, Q is marking its fifth anniversary. As they say, time flies when you’re having  rum.

The anniversary celebrations continue through June 5 and include:

- A free shot for everyone who goes to Q Bar

- The top selling cocktails from each year — Q Bar Summer Cocktail (2006), Classic Martini (2007), Mojito (2008), Passion Fruit Mojito (2009) and Mango Mash (2010) — at RMB35.

- And a nightly draw, with one person getting a free drink on every visit until the end of the year and four people each getting 25 drink vouchers.

I might have to drop by for an Alphonso Special…

Woman cannot live by cocktail alone.

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By day a music operations coordinator, by night and weekend a beverage fiend, few people are as keen on exploring Beijing’s scene as Ami Li. I asked her for a top five of her favorite drinking holes. Here it is. (For more top fives, see here.)

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“My list is, in two words, utterly predictable. More than that, it is good insight into where “most people who live in the hutongs” drink. As you know, I’m quite… particular about my alcoholic beverages, so each one of my all-time top five in Beijing are locations that warm my heart, and make my liver weep.

In no particular order…

Amilal. The first hutong bar I was introduced to in Beijing, and still my favourite when the weather gets cold. Exquisite selection of single malt and Japanese whiskies, good beer, better music, and the best cats that will never give you the time of day. Aluss is among the friendliest and most artistically talented bar owners in the city. You’ll notice a theme with these recommendations; whether it’s because they love my personality or (more likely) the frequency of my patronage at their establishments, all my “favourites” in Beijing owe a good deal to the friendly, welcoming nature of their proprietors. Drink of choice: either an Islay single malt or Jack, ginger and bitters.

El Nido. For the first six months, whenever I walked into El Nido, Xiao Shuai would ask me, “absinthe?” One of the best hidden gems in the city, and I must say that every award they don’t win gives me hope that the motley crew of regulars there will stay my motley crew of regulars. Every time I’m there, whether it’s two in the morning or two in the afternoon, I could stay until the sun rises or sets and feel like no time has passed at all. The addition of rotating global cuisine there on the weekends is oh so welcome, because honestly, it takes one more step out of the decision-making process. And now, because I feel like giving away an actual (semi-) secret, El Nido also has the cheapest pastis in town. RMB5 has even Cafe de la Poste down the hutong beat. Drink of choice: Harbin (the classic), Erdinger Weiss (the classy), pastis (the Eurotrashy).

Mao Mao Chong. For my cocktail fix when I don’t want to venture down to Flamme (see below), it will always be Mao Mao Chong. I love the creativity and fearlessness that Stephen and Stephanie apply to their cocktails and pizzas. One of the best parts about the place is the fact that they combine all the comforts of home with all the glories of being in China. You get the familiarity of pizza with the innovation of Sichuan peppercorn-infused vodka in your Mala Mule, and it’s absolutely brilliant. Drink of choice: The Bloody Mao. Stepehn, Stephanie, it you’re reading— please please please consider opening for brunch! I know it’s somewhat impossible logistically, but just imagine! Breakfast pizzas and Bloody Mao! I cannot think of a better paradise on a late Sunday morning.

Great Leap Brewery. Beer gets somewhat of a short shrift in my regular imbibing habits, but Great Leap is fast changing those ways. Much like James Fallows, I mourn the dearth of good—nay, acceptable—beer in China. Luckily now, I have El Nido to satisfy my obscure Czech beer cravings and Great Leap to turn to when I want an IPA to grow some hair on my chest. Located deep within the recesses of the hutongs off Di’anmenwai, Great Leap’s a place that somehow epitomizes “destination drinking”. You have to really concentrate to find the place, and I freely admit that I still get lost on the way over every so often. But once you’ve arrived, and open that big metal gate, it’s like you’ve stepped into an industrial Narnia, where empty kegs serve as seating and enormous bags of malt line the walls. Drink of choice: IPA, honey ma blond.

Flamme. Outside of wine spritzers and Cosmopolitans, I will try practically any alcoholic beverage at least once. But cocktails are my first love. And no one knows more or is friendlier than Paul Mathew and the crew he trained over at Flamme. After hearing about the place for a few months after it opened, I finally ventured over there with the promise of Morning Glory Fizzes, an esoteric gin-based restorative Paul had, of all things, tweeted about one afternoon. I’ve not been there recently as much as I’d have liked to, but I know that every time I go, I’ll be able to geek about the latest release of bitters or which vermouth is finally entering the China market, all while sipping a perfectly balanced and absurdly delicious cocktail. Drink of choice: anything brown, bitter, and stirred; a classic Negroni (Gordon’s gin, rocks, orange wedge).

Honorable mentions: George’s, Apothecary, Alba

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Do it for The Snepsts. (vancouverrestaurants.com)

NHL hockey fans seeking others of their kind have more options than ever in Beijing. Here are four of the best to catch this year’s finals between the The Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins:

The Irish Volunteer. Don’t let the name fool you — this Lido spot has been old reliable the past three years in screening the games, drawing a crowd, and creating a good atmosphere.

Grinders. In its first season of showing the playoffs, this Shuangjing joint gives a free pint of Stella to all in attendance whenever Vancouver scores.

The Box. Fans in the Gulou area can mosey over to this bar, also in its first season, for both the game and a serving of poutine.

Frank’s Place. Last but not least, this longstanding bar is now run by the Canuck behind the Goose and Duck and is not only open 24 hours per day but also is showing all of the games.

If anyone knows a place in Wudaokou showing the games, much appreciated if you would give me a heads up.