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China
Room 101 is a bar and restaurant in Dong Cheng district. It is one of the only foreign-managed places in Beijing which is open 24/7. They also have 24-hour delivery which is a godsend - their paninis are delicious! They also have lots of live music events, free wi-fi and a terrace with BBQ.
www.room101.cn
+86 (10) 6402 7532
Located 3 mins walk south of Andingmen subway station at 199 Andingmen Nei Dajie.
Fantastic way to find the less explored parts of Beijing. They organise hikes along the Great Wall away from the crowded tourist sections.
An American-style pizza restaurant with beer on tap.
They serve the best pizza in Beijing and it's perfect for when you get tired of gloopy soup and fatty Chinese pork. If you're only in town for a short stay you should, of course, try local dishes (especially duck) but after a few days you'll probably want to try Kro's Nest.
It's not easy to find though. Apparently there are a couple of branches but I've only been to the one at Workers' Stadium.
I read about it in Beijing for Beginners: An Irishman in the People's Republic and it has been a life-saver since.
Take the subway to Dongsishitao and walk east. When you get to Workers Stadium, walk inside the gates to the car park. The restaurant is on the left but the entrance is around the corner down a gravelly walkway. Not a very attractive entrance but inside makes up for it.
www.thekrosnest.com/
The bomb shelter bar near the Red Capital Residence is one of the more interesting drinking holes (in the ground) of Beijing. Getting there is half the adventure as you climb into a manhole-sized opening and down steep stairs under a low ceiling: awkward for all but the most agile.
It was built as a bomb shelter during the cold war between China and Russia to protect party officials but the the mobile signals show the quality of construction. 50s propaganda movies and memorabilia set the scene. Serves Gold Star Yanjing beer!
A great place to see the locals - especially the more senior citizens - enjoy themselves at the weekend exercising, dancing, doing taiqi and doing calligraphy with water-filled brushes on the paving stones near the east entrance.
North 3rd Ring Road neat intersection with Chaoyang Bei Lu
At the Nanxincang branch of Da Dong Roast Duck they have 22 private rooms, making it a great restaurant to do business – it is also the best Peking duck in Beijing. You have to reserve, though, because it is a popular place and the queues can be horrendous.
Most other countries wouldn’t dream of mixing business with karaoke, but in China it is almost de rigeur to spend at least one night with the microphone – it will up your kudos if you are seen to be a sport. Partyworld is a massive chain, and will give you the full-on karaoke experience, including free food – they also have private rooms, if you’re feeling a bit shy.
For an upmarket Chinese night out, I can recommend Centro, the bar in the Kerry Centre hotel. Don’t be put off by it being in a hotel, because it is one of the chicest venues in the city. They have an inviting cocktail list, sometimes have live jazz and there is plenty of plush, comfortable furniture.
There are two very good hotels on Financial Street in the new business district. The Ritz-Carlton is in a modern glass building and has only recently opened, it has everything you’d expect from the brand and is exceptionally clean and new. There is a pool in it with a projection screen that shows films and there are also TVs in the bathrooms. The hotel can also send a car to pick you up from the airport. The other good hotel here is the Intercontinental, which was the first hotel in this area – although still quite new. The service is impeccable and there is free internet.
Xiāngshān Gōngyuán (meaning Fragrant Hills Park) is situated about 30 km to the northeast of the city centre. Less frequently visited by foreign tourists, Xiāngshān is a beautiful park with at least five pathways leading to its peak (approx 550m), from where, on a clear day, you can get a breathtaking view of Beijing. It takes about two hours to walk up to the peak, and along the way are many temples, lakes and pagodas that have historical significance.
The park was built in the Jin Dynasty (1186). The park is open all year around but the best time to visit it is in autumn, when all the leaves turn red/orange colour and it will just leave you mesmerized. Běijīng Zhíwùyuán (Beijing Botanical Gardens), are located next to the foot of Xiāngshān. It's a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre, and would be ideal for anyone who wants to while away their time in beautiful surroundings, including the greenhouse and a special rose garden that contains at least five types of rose flower. Quite romantic too!
After spending the day at Xiāngshān and Běijīng Zhíwùyuán, it would provide a nice ending to the day if you visited the town of Wu Dao Kou - an area near the Tsinghua and Beijing Universities, popular with tourists, foreign students and expats alike. There are a myriad of restaurants of all different types of cuisines (including Indian, Italian and Mexican). There are also some nice Japanese and Korean restaurants where you can drink authentic Japanese or Korean beer over a nice meal.
You will need a whole day to see both Xiāngshān Gōngyuán and Běijīng Zhíwùyuán (including traveling to/from the city centre, which takes about 30 minutes by taxi, costs approx 50 RMB from city centre). Also takes an hour by the many buses, if you are adventurous, but costs only 6RMB one way. Wu Dao Kou is located within 30 minutes of the city centre, and has a metro station (on line 13 from Xizhimen) and is easy to get from the botanical gardens by taxi (about 20 minutes and costs approx 30-40RMB).
All taxi drivers will understand you when you mention the names of the places, as they are written above.
A good website: www.atthewu.com
The Swiss Hotel has a great hotel in Beijing and around the world. If you register on their website you can get a free Gold Card that will give you brilliant extras including a comp' room upgrade at your hotel on arrival - excellent.
Finding a tailor to make you a custom suit in Beijing can be a bit tricky if you don't know where you are looking in this vast metropolis. This can be particularly challenging if you have 'Western' measurements so can't buy off the shelf. The best place to go is Gong Ti Bei Lu market right by 'Workers' Stadium'. There you will be able to find various stores catering for your needs. Expect to pay around USD100 a suit.
Ask your hotel to write the address in Chinese - otherwise your taxi driver won't find it!
Yunnan food that people from Yunnan actually eat. Serving the Yunnan Provincial Government Office, Yunteng Shifu offers authentic Yunnan cuisine made with ingredients which are flown in direct from the southern province. The restaurant is open all day and the somewhat kitsch, jungle interior can feel like a breath of fresh air after dusty Beijing.
Yunnan specialities include goat's cheese (rubing), pineapple rice (bolo fan), 'crossing the bridge' noodles (guo qiao mixian), proscuitto-like cuts of ham and the hot, fresh wonderfulness which is Dai mint salad.
There's no English menu but everything is illustrated with photos. Yunnan food is very trendy in Beijing and can be hugely overpriced, but a meal here for two with Yunnan beer or tea shouldn't cost more than £10. Highly, highly recommended.
Set back from the road, Yunteng Shifu looks to be part of a posh housing estate. Look for the building with large gold characters down the side of it and stone steps leading up to the entrance.
Yunteng Hotel, 7 Donghuashi Beili Dongqu (bet. Chongwenmen Dongdajie & Donghuashi Dajie) Beijing, China 100019
Tel: 010-6713-6439
Nearest metro stations: Chongwenmen (line 5) or Beijing Train Station (line 2).
A website in which local restaurants, bars, clubs, activities, tours and anything else people care to comment on are reviewed by ordinary people living in the city.
Be aware of the Beijing teahouse scam, - especially around the Tiananmen Square and Wang Fujing Street areas - which young Chinese people posing as students of English will try to lure foreigners into a tea-house for a demonstration of tea ceremony, leaving the foreigner with a bill running to hundreds of US dollars. Be sure to ask for prices for the tea and facilities up front before agreeing to any kind of tea ceremony.
This is a great place to learn Mandarin, they only hire full-time teachers, they are very serious about teaching Mandarin!
Forget Silk Market for your Chinese tat and clothes. It's crowded and vendors are very pushy. Go down the road instead. It's the same stuff, including great tailors, just as big but less crowded and therefore more fun. Remember to haggle!
Yashow Market, 58 Gongti Beilu, Chaoyang District
If you intend on staying in Beijing for a few months, try learning Mandarin at the Hutong School. It is situated in a beautiful courtyard in the middle of a hutong area. They give you all sorts of support, have apartments to stay in, organise trips, it's a great way to live in Beijing!
Grand palace built for the emperor of China, fantastic site. To get the full experience I recommend the audio tour. Why? It guides you in English (or any other language) around the site explaining what went on. The best bit is the voice is none other than James Bond, Roger Moore.
It's a phone translation service that makes travelling in China much easier. You sign up online for a certain number of minutes and then add credit when you run out. All you need is a mobile phone, which you can pass to anyone you need to speak to and they can interpret what you want to say. Best part is it runs 24 hours a day so it can be really useful when it's 3am and you've realised you've lost the address of the hotel you're staying in.
Using it with international roaming can be a bit pricey (as you're using a UK network's roaming rates) so I'd recommend getting a Chinese SIM card which means it's a local-rate call from anywhere in the country.
Last time I checked they were about to introduce a SIM card delivery service but might be worth checking first. We bought our SIM cards at Beijing airport.
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