Nibbles and Sips: September/October 2016 Edition

Margaux Schreurs | Sep 12, 2016 8:30 am | Add a comment | 1087 reads

For some reason unbeknownst to us, this sticky time of the year has seen the opening up of many new hot pot restaurants, including the new Yijiaren in Gongti’s China View, as well as popular Taiwanese Xiabu Xiabu’s new upscale sister restaurant, Coucou. Both are great additions to the city, especially if you’re looking for somewhere with a snazzier focus on decor than your average hot pot joint.

The new Topwin Center in Sanlitun, which houses the aforementioned hot pot newbie Coucou, is also home to an assortment of other new restaurants. For example, two favorites include Shubo, a health-centric eatery with a wide range of fresh and crunchy green salads, or Beyond Yakitori, which is all about food on skewers. As Topwin fills up, we’re eagerly awaiting its other new arrivals to come and satiate our cravings.

We’ve also seen a number of new bar openings, including C2H60 next to Temple Restaurant Beijing, which boasts a collection of over 700 different beer bottles.

If you’re more of a cocktail person, try Rong just off the East Third Ring Road, or Bar 4 Nine, located above a chicken restaurant in Gulou. Both new venues tilt towards the sophisticated, with high quality, elegant cocktails, made using carefully selected ingredients.

Slightly north of Bar 4 Nine we’ve welcomed the opening of Mimi e Coco, Ramo’s sibling and neighboring bar. Under the purvey of the same management, Mimi aims to entice Fangjia Hutong’s late night crowd with handcrafted and colorful cocktails, which come pre-bottled so as to avoid long waiting times, and Italian-influenced bar snacks.

Of course with exciting new openings comes news of some sad closings, and this month saw the closure of Union Bar & Grille after eight years of serving up American grub in Beijing. We’ll most certainly miss their happy hour and juicy burgers. We’ll also miss Old What? Bar, the first stop for many Beijinger’s to watch bands cut their teeth before they headed onto bigger venues around town.

This article first appeared in our magazine. To read the entire September/October issue online, please click here.