Archive for August, 2008

Nail Bar

Aug 22nd

Posted by Nanjinged in Bar

5 comments

Finally got around to trying the Nail Bar. I had heard beforehand that clientele can be rather sparse, and that wasn’t an exaggeration, we went on a Wednesday, and there were exactly 0 other customers around 9pm or so. Undeterred and always a fan of the quiet hole in the wall bar, we grabbed a table.

The decor is nice and has a rustic wood and jazz music paraphernalia theme going. It is probably one of the cleanest bars I have ever seen in Nanjing, with the bathrooms being cleaner than 98% of Nanjing restaurants. There is an upstairs loft type area, and a lower level with small stage setup and a couple tables by the door.

The real reason I had come to Nail Bar was the beer selection. They have what is probably the best selection of beer in the city. The beer comes with a price, but it isn’t too much more than if you bought them yourself at an import shop (i.e. Times Grocery), and the prices for local beers are on par with most other Nanjing bars. They have a decent website (for some reason something that is all too rare here) that lists the entire menu with prices :http://www.nailbar.cn/

It seems that they also have special beers from time to time that aren’t on this menu, but this will give you an idea on quality and variety.

Beer  
   
Hoegaarden Draft 250ml/38
  500ml/68
Hoegaarden 30
Hoegaarden Grand Cru 60
Chimay red 50
Chimay white 60
Chimay blue 100
Duvel 50
Leffe Blonde 50
LeffeBrown 60
Leffe Triple 60
Leffe Radieuse 60
Kwak 60
Orval 60
Grimbergen 60
Weatmalle Tripel 60
Scaldis Bush Amder 60
Delirium Tremens 60
Karmeliet 60
Newton 50
Lindmans Framboise/Kriek/ 60
Stella artois 30
Jupiler 50
Bitburger 30
Weihenstephaner Hefr Weissbier 50
Weihenstephaner Kristall Weissbier 50
Erdinger 50
Kostritzer 30
Gunness 30
Beamish 50
Boddingtons 50
Newcadtle 30
Old Speckled Hen 50
Abbot Ale 50

 

Getting there is easy, the bar is behind the Sheraton, so go to the street that runs on the East side of the Sheraton and go past the Sheraton about 200 meters and the bar will be on your left. I would definitely make this place a regular place to grab some beers if it wasn’t so far from where I live.

Nanjing Bar Culture pt. 1

Aug 18th

Posted by Nanjinged in Bar

2 comments

As I spend more time than I should in bars here, I have more than a few observations. This is the first in a series that I will use as an excuse to hit the streets and get sloshed:

1. There really isn’t a sports bar culture.

Coming from the US, possibly the biggest segment of bars, is the “sports bar”. i.e. a bar where you go to drink and watch sports with other like minded individuals. Nanjing doesn’t seem to have too much of this. Sure, most bars have televisions that may or may not have sports on, but no one seems to care much. And even though every couple years when the Euro Cup or World Cup rolls around, people will head out to bars in droves to watch, no one seems to care much about the outcome, more about the event. As they usually have no home team to get behind, they watch just to watch. Unlike the US where the bar will cheer or curse based on every single play, the emotion of everyone there dependant on the home team’s performance.

Though recently, I did get a glimpse into what China would be like with a sports bar culture when China played the USA in basketball last week. It was later billed as the most watched basketball game in history. Watching it in a crowded bar in China, I was likely alone in my support of the US (I kept my celebration toned down as to not incite a riot). The crowded bar cheered Yao’s every move on the big projection screen. They gasped despite themselves when Kobe or Lebron pulled some crazy, seemingly impossible move, the bar was tense when the game was neck and neck in the first half and relaxed as the game moved on to blowout in the second. There were in depth (and drunken) discussions on what China needs to do to improve, and if Yao’s injury was having lingering affects. In the end it left me wanting more of this drunken camaraderie of sports brotherhood. Now that China has punched their ticket for the second round of the Olympic basketball tournament, you can bet you will find me at the bar, watching, getting my sports bar fix while I can. 

Subway Nanjing Menu

Subway: Part Deux

Aug 11th

Posted by Nanjinged in Food

1 comment

So, couldn’t help myself, went to Subway on Saturday as I had some shopping to do and figured Carrefour was as good a place as any.

Not really much in terms of customers, but it was kind of between lunch and dinner, so not too surprising. Prices are included on menu image below. Pretty much the same as Subway in the US, which for me at least is a good thing (Probably the same as Subway everywhere, but I’ve only been to Subway in the US). It hasn’t been localized like a Pizza Hut or something.

All the meats, etc. seem to be exactly the same as in the US, and all the paper products are also exactly the same (i.e. the bags, cups and sandwich wrap all have subway logo and other text in English only) so it appears most everything is imported, so if you’ve ever been to Subway anywhere, you should know what to expect.

Another pleasant surprise of the uniformity is that they have the exact same cookies as the US… Hey, I had to try them for research purposes :)

These are easily now the best cookies I’ve had in Nanjing, though I can’t really think of more than a handful of other places I’ve seen cookies, but I’ll definitely keep my eyes open to see if anyone can compete.

So if you need a little more variety than Sichuan one night and Hunan the next, I’d throw Subway into the mix, if only to keep them profitable enough to keep the doors open to feed the occasional need for a Itialian Sub with all the fixings.

Click Here for High Res Version of the above

Flickr Unblocked?!?

Aug 9th

Posted by Nanjinged in Internet

3 comments

It would appear that Flickr.com, the awesome picture hosting/sharing site, has been completely unblocked in China. Previously, while you could access the site, most images would be inaccessible and just show the image frame with the red “x” in it. This is almost certainly in response to the many Olympic visitors in Beijing, one can only hope it lasts after the Olympics, or that the guy flicking the switches of the Great Firewall misplaces the post-it note that says “Re-block Flickr after closing ceremony!”

Subway invades Nanjing!!!

Aug 7th

Posted by Nanjinged in Nanjing

No comments

Well, not quite an invasion, but 2 stores to get started. For the uninitiated, Subway is an American chain of sandwich shops that has recently begun a more aggressive expansion in China (They’ve been in major cities awhile, but have more recently been increasing store counts in the those cities as well as adding a few stores to the smaller cities.)

Stores will open this weekend. Both are in Carrefours, one in the XinJiekou store and the other in Daqiao. Free delivery within 3KM, so start searching for a new apartment now.

Hope they have a foot long Spicy Italian ready for me! Now all Nanjing needs is decent Mexican food and we’re in business.

South China Morning Post in the Olympic Spirit

Aug 6th

Posted by Nanjinged in Internet

No comments

The indispensable Hong Kong English language newspaper is offering free access to its online edition at SCMP.com for the month of August. And thanks to recent Olympic related website unblockings on the mainland, it should be pretty much accessible without proxy, VPN, black magic, etc to all of us here.

Check it out:

https://register.scmp.com/subscription_freetrial.php

20q_front

20Q Chinese

Aug 5th

Posted by Nanjinged in gadgets

No comments

20Q is a small electronic gadget type thing that plays the classic game 20 Questions. It starts off asking if the thing you are thinking of is animal, plant, mineral, or other. It then proceeds to ask yes or no questions determined by your answers to previous questions. It’s pretty amazing how accurately it guesses what you are thinking of.

I had one of these for awhile that operates in English, but was surprised to see one in the Hong Kong Airport recently, and for less than I paid for the English version overseas.

I immidiately purchased it and set about seeing how it operates. It seems to work just about exactly the same as the English version, just translated into Chinese. Seems like a pretty cool way to work on your Chinese. The scroll speed of the characters can even be slowed down so that you can jot down any unknown characters so that you can look them up in a dictionary as necessary.

The thing is so accurate that I would venture to say that if it guesses incorrectly, you probably answered a question incorrectly.

I found you can even buy one online in China ( http://www.gadgetlife.cn/products.asp?id=368 ). Amazingly it’s sold for about the same price as I paid in the HK airport ($90HKD), a surprisingly cheap place to shop (relatively speaking for an airport).

you can also play online at http://www.20q.net/

Just select language and go!

20Q Front20Q Back