Beijing Boyce

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Look for a pair of Blue Frogs to open over the next few months, with the Dongzhimen Chaoyanmen outlet in U-Town, beside the new Crowne Plaza, possibly serving burgers and beers within the next two weeks, says Greg Dover. (That will create a one-two patty punch given Burger King is just around the corner.) Dover says the venue will seat about 140 customers and have more of a bar feel than the one in Sanlitun Village. The patio out front will fit another 60 people along a lengthy facade with sliding windows that can be opened to provide an airy feel when the weather is good. (Note: This might be the neatest construction site I have ever seen in Beijing.)

The second venue will be in Indigo, the new Swire project in Lido that includes office space, hotel East, and an indoor “garden” with fifteen food and beverage outlets. The Blue Frog outlet will have one of two first-floor corner spaces that provide direct access from outside as well as from the lobby. Dover says the restaurant will measure a whopping 630 square meters, with an additional patio of 100 square meters, and seat around 400 people. The design includes two bars as well as areas that can be easily partitioned for events. Look for an opening late this year or early next year.

Both new Blue Frogs will have the same menu and specials as their predecessors. That means more Burger, Burger Monday about town.

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Was heading from Lido to Sanlitun and decided to stop at Home Plate to grab a bite and send some emails. Sometimes timing is everything: Brandon Hess of beer distributor Dxcel had just arrived with a case of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. This is the only case in Beijing, he says, though more will be coming to market in a few months, so head to Home Plate if you want a try. This beer is aged six weeks in Bourbon barrels, adds Hess. Expect a strong brew as it checks in at 8.19 percent alcohol (how precise!). A few more emails and I will be trying one of these…

Update: And we have a winner! Trevor Metz of Grinders checked to make sure the draw was on the up and up. I wrote each entrant’s name on a paper, put the papers in a glass, and Metz drew one out. The winner of four Beijinger party tickets: Mike Cormack (and, ultimately, three of this friends).

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Ten years ago… I might have been a senior in a Canadian university, dragging about a backpack of books and Jolt cola and dreaming of — some day! — a move to Beijing to write a smart-ass blog about the bar scene. Or a university “professor” in Korea teaching the third conditional to students, the males of which warned me to stay away from the womenfolk. Or a reporter for a Taiwan-based trade magazine by day and proprietor of a hair salon / cocktail bar by night – would you like some punch with that bowl cut? I don’t know. I was probably doing one of the above, but my memory is hazy, because ten years is a long time.

So, kudos to Mike Wester and his magazine for surviving that long – a decade – in the highly competitive publishing industry. It started out as that’s Beijing and, after a nasty split with the publisher a few years back, became The Beijinger without missing an issue, and for me is the most relevant – and certainly most amusing – of the lifestyle magazines in our fair city.

The Beijinger will mark its tenth with a rmb100 all-you-can-drink five-hour bash this Saturday, from 4 PM to 9 PM, at Sanlitun Soho, which seems a fitting spot given it sits on the former Sanlitun Bar Street.

I have four tickets to give away. Leave a comment and tell us what you were doing ten years ago. Deadline for entries is tomorrow, Friday, at 3 PM. All legitimate entries go into a draw that I will do tomorrow afternoon.

(By the way, I’ll be contacting everyone who has yet to claim a prize from past contests, or who I have yet to give pick-up details to, in the next day.)

Finally, one of my favorite covers by Wester and the team — I can only imagine how long it took to get all four dogs into position.

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The fall edition of the biannual ritual known as the Carrefour Wine Fair is slated for October 14 to October 16  in the Shuangjing branch. The Friday night opening tends to be fun, with not only the chance to try free samples from among hundreds of wines (see catalog here) but also a 20 percent discount on imported bottles. As usual, I recommend you bring your own glass (BYOG) as the ones provided by Carrefour are small.

A few posts about past fairs:

• ‘Prostitute wine’ and other tales
• Glasses, deals, and labels with animals galore
• Southern exposure
• By / buy the case

Bomb Shelter Bar, beneath Red Capital Residence, ranks among the city’s more unusual drinking dens. To get there requires going through the residence courtyard, down steps of various heights, and along a low and narrow tunnel. It’s worth a visit though not for the claustrophobic. It was also site of a “blind tasting” of maple syrup earlier this year that saw the sticky stuff from Canada (Ontario) beat that from the United States (New Hampshire) back into the bush where it belongs. Anyway, I was playing with the collage function on Picassa again — see my previous Nanluogxiang effort — and put together the photos below of the bar.

See also:

• Getting blitzed in Beijing: The Bomb Shelter Bar at Red Capital Residence (2009)
• Getting bombed at Red Capital Residence (2006)

Tickets are on sale for Chifan for Charity, now in its third year, slated for November 5, and featuring 32 restaurants, from Agua to Alameda, Modo to Maison Boulud, Taverna to Temple. Each venue will donate a table for ten to twenty people, and prepare a special menu, with seats costing from rmb500 to rmb1500. This year’s charities are Bethel Foundation and New Hope Foundation. Info and tickets available here.

Look for Iki Restaurant to introduce new menu items, including dishes that feature eel and pork. One that sounds intriguing includes bacon, kimchi, peppers and cheese. Meanwhile, Japanese restaurant He Yi Shang, two doors down, has closed and been gutted. Word is at least part of the space will become a Taiwanese pub that features fried food.

Speyside, we hardly knew you. This restaurant and bar in The Office Park has closed and left behind only a few fleeting memories. Like from my first visit, when the manager introduced himself and within two minutes asked if we knew of any job openings at other restaurants. Not a good sign. And from my last visit, which basically consisted of sitting out front and drinking pints of Stella with the guys from the then soon-to-open Wine Way next door.

And in nearby Central Park, residents continue to have more options. Besides spots such as Obentos and Pizza by LM Plus opening in recent months, Pekotan is back and there is a new Italian outfit  Milano Cafe that I will soon check out.

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Attention casual wine consumers seeking good but inexpensive wine in Beijing. The third annual Grape Wall of China Challenge will be held at Modo — sibling of restaurant Mosto — on November 8. The GWC brings together Chinese consumers to ‘blind’ taste imported wines that retail in Beijing for less than rmb100. We organize it for several reasons.

• There is no shortage of wine recommendations from “experts“, that is, people working in the industry. The GWC aims to get an idea of what casual wine drinkers enjoy.
• There is plenty of coverage of top wines but not much about cheaper ones, although they account for most buys. The GWC hopes to find good but inexpensive bottles.
• Many people are intimidated by wine, whether it is on a restaurant menu or a supermarket shelf. The GWC wants to give consumers confidence and underscore that wine preferences are personal and judging wine is no mystery.
• The GWC is fun.

An added feature of this year’s Grape Wall Challenge: the winning wines will go into Modo’s card-based enomatic machines.

I’ll post more details, including how distributors can participate, on Wednesday on the Grape Wall of China blog. See here for details about GWC 2010 at Maison Boulud and here for details about GWC 2009 at Maxim’s Solana.

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Great Leap Brewing will celebrate: 1) its first anniversary, 2) its new Great Wall location, 3) the fresh local produce close to that new operation, 4) the concept of all-you-can-drink beer and 5) the knighting of Carl Setzer by the Royal Society of Brew Masters Who Might Be Joking Or Might Be Surly, You Just Don’t Know*, on October 22 by holding a Harvest Fest. Buses will leave from Paddy O’Shea’s to the Great Wall at Mutianyu brewery at noon and half-past noon and return at 8:30 PM. Tickets are rmb400 per person or rmb700 per couple, and include the bus ride and all food and drink. Tickets for children — obviously sans alcohol — are rmb150.

Great Leap marketing head Nathalie Johnston says the event will include:

• “fresh local fruits and veggies, spit-roasted pig, grilled locally farmed fish”.
• “all the Great Leap beer you can drink”, with three options: Pale Ale No. 6, Oatmeal Porter and Little General IPA.
• “fun and games for the whole family, including cornhole [what!?], keg tosses and more”.

Contact Johnston at 15611-218-019 or njohnston (at) greatleapbrewing.com, or visit Great Leap, to buy tickets.

* Still confirming that part.

Four people say they think they spotted the guy who took my laptop — pictured below — at Temple Bar, just off Gulou East Street, last night (hat tips to Betty and DK). Apparently, he speaks Italian and lives in the area. If you saw him there, or anywhere else in town, please let me know at beijingboyce (at) yahoo.com. And thank you to all of the people who have been sending me tips. I plan a full Operation Laptop Retrieval update later this week.

It’s been a bad year for me and electronics. Me versus laptops, me versus cell phones, me versus cameras. Take the latter: I bought a new lens for my camera two weeks ago, a day before flying west, and things looked good. That next day, a few hours outside Urumqi, a piece came loose inside the camera body and meant no photos. Not surprisingly, we found no repair shops in the outback of Xinjiang. I went two days without a functioning camera until I finally snapped into MacGyver mode: I used a toothpick to place four tiny drops of toothpaste inside the camera, let them dry and get gummy, and then “glued” in the piece. Miraculously, it held for the rest of the trip. Anyway, long story short, the camera is working, so expect more photos. (Until it breaks again.)

Some photos of dishes I ate over the holidays…

“Indiavolato” sandwich at Moment Cafe: Chicken paired with a spicy spread that includes jalapenos. This is one tasty sandwich. The soups, savory crepes and “rustic” sandwich at Moment are good, too.

Beef with risotto and snow peas at Modo: A rich dish I ate during a “working lunch” with the team at this restaurant  (details tomorrow on our joint project). This is part of the set lunch menu that changes weekly. Word is the sea bass with passion fruit sauce will make a return at some point.

‘Caesar’ salad at Ssam Korean restaurant: Goodbye croutons, hello tofu cubes — crispy on the outside, soft on the inside — and lotus seeds, with mini kimbap and pancakes on the side.

Turkey Reuben at Union: Sibling to this restaurant’s popular Reuben sandwich, it also comes with coleslaw and fries. Not yet listed on the menu but it is available.

Beef and water chestnut dumplings from Green Bites (Sanlitun Soho): These guys are made from scratch — which means a wait — and what they lack in greasy roadside appeal they make up for in freshness.

Bibimbap at Iki Korean restaurant: Topped with a handful of mozzarella, this is my go-to dish here. By the way, Iki is perpetually packed so it is best to book seats. (This is the only one of the photos here that I didn’t take this week.)

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Jam shares the same alley as Temple just off Gulou East and that means we can expect people to soon claim this as the next up-and-coming drinking zone in town. There might be something to that, given Temple is already a draw, and Jam, which is pretty big by NLGX-Gulou standards, offers a good vibe and a charismatic owner in Ryu. And that’s not even to mention nearby Awesomeness Cafe, which offers a nice chill-out space upstairs and plenty of potential.

Anyway, I stopped by Saturday night, my first visit since sampling some Yunnan wines about a month ago, and enjoyed my martini — the retro olive forks are a fun touch. I also tried a ‘Tom Waits“, which includes Bourbon and Campari, that Ryu recommended. An interesting concoction though I’d be more inclined to order another martini.

Jam is worth a visit and I look forward to trying the food, which Ryu says will soon be available. And to the upcoming magazine headlines about this place. We Be Jammin’? Jam Packed? Cocktail Preserve? In a Jam? Wham, bam, thank you Jam? Editors will be having fun with this one…

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Stephanie Rocard of Mao Mao Chong celebrated her birthday at the bar last night and Nick Papa of Duvel-Moortgat brought a gift that every girl longs for — a double magnum of beer. Okay, to be honest, that sounds more like a gift I would long for. Anyway, Rocard  isn’t really a beer drinker, so we had to pitch in and finish the bottle.

Also, a few months ago, I posted on Facebook about a puppy that Stephen and Stephanie Rocard found and were seeking a home for. Several people asked me what happened to that dog. In fact, it was adopted by my wine buddies 8 Songs and Ba Songs, who named it Mao Mao. I visited them on Friday night and can report that Mao Mao is happy and healthy.

George’s Bar in Workers Stadium now offers a rmb320 Long Island Iced Tea. Assume that one only includes top-shelf spirits. Meanwhile, a few doors down Fubar now offers desserts — ice cream and the like — at rmb38 for one or rmb100 for three. Are these the first two signs of the apocolypse, examples of creative marketing, or both? You decide…

First Home Plate teamed up with the Beijing Hilton for a rodeo, then it hosted a beer and food tasting with Slow Boat Brewery, and now Seth Grossman and Adam Murray are working with the Beijing International Movie Festival on a event called ”Burgers and Bombs.” Busy guys. Grossman says the event is slated for October 17 and will feature less impressive movie submissions, the kind I’m guessing that you just can’t turn off, along with burgers.

Also on October 17 21, Beer Mania will become “Wine Mania“, though for one day only, says Thierry De Dobbeleer. Expect the wine focus to be French. De Dobbeleer is also looking at adding more large-format beers to the menu — think magums.

Champagne Bar in the Fairmont Hotel has launched a winter cocktail menu that uses house infusions, cordials and syrups. For those who like to make their own drinks, the Fairmont also holds two-hour cocktail classes with bartender Anthony Evangelista on the third Friday of each month. The next one, on October 21, features Champagne cocktails and costs rmb120.

Gulou-area newcomer Jam Bar will soon partner its cocktail menu with some Italian-Japanese dishes, if it is hasn’t already. I haven’t been by since the Yunnan fruit wine sampling but will do so soon.

Finally, fans of Tannat will be happy to know that Torres China is now stocking Pisano wines from Uruguay.

You might know Seth Grossman as your friendly neighborhood BBQ  man, who, with Adam Murray, keeps our tummies full of pulled pork, brisket and baked beans at Home Plate. But he has a past. Evidently one where graphic artists used his head for all manner of tomfoolery, whether in a parade float or as the patty in a burger. Ironically, a few designs – all of which are at least six years old – foreshadow that Grossman would move to China. Like this one…

 And that he would get into a business involving BBQ:

 And beer:

You can get more “Seth Heads” below or the full collection here.

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V Bar / Wei Bar opened in Sanlitun Soho last night and made even more eclectic the B1 alley that includes Korean restaurant Ssam, Alsatian eatery Tonton, and European-style coffee shop Moment. The design and decor are simple – a bar on one side, a couple of living room sets on the other, and tables and chairs down the middle, all with a view of the stage — and might be called “classic” Beijing. Fans of the color purple will be pleased.

As for the drinks menu, the focus is on bottle service, with Jim Beam at rmb280, Johnnie Walker Black at rmb580 and “Carl Irla” / Caol Ila at rmb1080. There are a few beers, notably 500 ml bottles of Erdinger at rmb40, a pair of cocktails, including a Long  Island, and a wine list — I didn’t know the brands and found the prices prohibitive, with glasses starting at rmb58. Opening night saw an appearance by a Michael Jackson impersonator (I didn’t see him perform, just hang at the bar) and a four-piece band that played classic Chinese rock.

I’m not sure how much demand there is in Soho for pricey wine and bottle service. That’s not really my scene, but if this place can get some decent bands, I could see myself stopping by for the occasional Erdinger.

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Good vittles (baked beans, brisket and the like from Home Plate), good booze (Fighting Cock Bourbon and Brooklyn, Saranac and Dead Guy beers from Dxcel) and endless unintentional comedy (a mechanical bull to toss patrons about) — a slow clap to the Beijing Hilton for its Zeta Rodeo last weekend. The event drew a crowd modest in size, though high in spirit, which surprised me given the number of people who said they intended to go and inspired me to get there early for a seat. Go figure.  Some highlights:

• The “Brokeback” bull ride by a pair of patrons that ended with one of them getting thrown off and almost “gored” (see above). True, that horn is a rubber, but still…
• Second place: When Brandon Hess of Dxcel spanked the bull with a cowboy hat. I have no idea what that action  is meant to symbolize. It must be an Iowa thing.
• The fiery baked beans (rmb10) from Home Plate. I couldn’t stop eating them. Three heaping bowls. Pity the people who had to sit within six rows of me on a flight the next morning. The pulled pork sandwich (rmb35) was tasty, too.
• The Brooklyn Lager (rmb40) and Fighting Cock Bourbon (rmb40). The first is a flavorsome brew that ranks among my favorites in Beijing, the second provides a high-octane kick at 51 percent alcohol. Both help wash down the food.
• The patience of emcee Anny “Tex” An when dealing requests to double-ride the bull or to ride it backwards.

Overall, a fun night, and I hope the Hilton makes this a regular event.

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I wrote a few months ago that alcohol distributor Dxcel planned to import High West whiskeys from Utah — and now they are here. Brandon Hess of Dxcel says the company has both a “silver” clear whiskey and a far more interesting sounding rye that is a blend of two-year-old and sixteen-year-old whiskeys. He adds that The Bookworm, Amilal, 2F and Home Plate should have both of them in stock  tomorrow.

Kro’s Nest will team up with beer distributor provider allocator guys Duvel Moortgat and delivery service Jinshisong to hold a party at the Sanlitun branch on Saturday night. The doors open at 7 PM, with the first four kegs of beer, including two Vedett White and two Tsing-Tao, and 180 slices of pizza handed out free. Look for a Rumble in the Jungle Slug Fest in the Nest between the mascots from Kro’s (a crow, naturally) and Duvel Moortgat (a polar beer, unnaturally, given the beer hails from Belgium).

In other free beer news, Fubar will give away 200 pints of Carlsberg from 8 PM, also on Saturday night, as it (roughly) mark its second birthday. For those who prefer other tipples during the Fu Turns Two party, co-owner Chad Lager says happy hour will go to 11 PM. These events can get sloppy and I’ll be doing my best to keep a safe distance from co-owner Kevin “Sambuca” Zhang.

Also Saturday, Nobu Beijing is celebrating the national holiday with drinks from rmb32 and snacks from mrb32, says chef Oyvind Naesheim. The specials are available at the bar on a first-come, first-served basis.

Finally, Modo turned one yesterday. This is the second venture by Alex Molina and Daniel Urdaneta of Mosto and I have visited quite a bit to try samples from those wine preservation machines on the second level. And for some tasty lunches — try the sea bass with lentil salad and passion fruit sauce.

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K

Among the better things I have tasted this year is the schnapps that the guys at Drei Kronen 1308 distilled from their Oktoberfest beer. (That Oktoberfest beer is good, too.) The schnapps has a nice malty and yeasty aroma, apparently is 35 percent alcohol (but doesn’t taste like it), and is as smooth as pre-2008 Edison Chen.

DK1308 doesn’t sell the schnapps but if you are drinking there, and ask about it, you’re more than likely to find yourself with a shot. By the way, there are two days left with the current promotion, which includes a live band from Germany (7 PM to around midnight) as well as a rmb198 drink deal with a free flow of all four house brews.