PHEBE BAR

Last weekend for Valentine's Day, a friend and I decided to take our wives out dancing and drinking to celebrate this special day. We decided to go on Friday to avoid the large crowds on Saturday.

This bar is fairly new and it is located at the intersection of Zhu Hui Lu and Ren Min Lu (竹辉路 & 人民路). I have been there a few times and it is always packed with people. The bar has two floors and many tables to sit or stand, to drink, and to play Chinese drinking games. The bar does not have a live band, but it has very good DJs and small stages where various singers will stand on the stages and sing different types of songs.

The bar actually gets really full and I recommend calling ahead of time and booking a table. The minimum spending for a table is 600 RMB ($87.59). For this price, you can get a 12 year old scotch bottle, a fruit plate, and three or four snacks. We eventually broke down and had to purchase more green tea to mix with the scotch. Also, outside the bar is a local barbecue street food stand that sells all kind of treats like fish, vegetables, meats, mushrooms, tofu and many more snacks. I have never purchased bottles at any bars in the US, so I do not have a measure of comparison to know if this is really expensive or not.

The atmosphere inside is really fun. The place is hopping with people dancing, playing dice games, drinking, and having a good time! The music is good. We played a few drinking games, danced, went outside to enjoy the street food. We ended up drinking a few rounds with some people from the tables near by. I recommend it!

Back Street Bar

Friday night I had the opportunity to explore a different bar in Suzhou. This bar is called Back Street Bar. I really don't recall where it is in Suzhou, because I wasn't paying attention to the route as we were going to the bar. The bar had a nice warm feeling to it. On the wall were pictures of different alternative artist like U2 and Pink Floyd. It brought back some old college memories of the music I use to listen to. It would have been nice to see some REM and Rush pictures hanging on the walls. It really is a nice cozy place. Very simple and warm. There was a live band playing some good Chinese rock music. In the US this place would be called a hole in the wall.

To my surprise upstairs was much bigger than the downstairs. It was just as cozy with a few sofas, nice seating, and a bar with bar stools. We had the bar special to drink, five Budweiser's for 100 RMB ($14.60 US).

When we arrived we ordered some street food. There were three choices so we got a little bit of lamb, pork, and beef. We would enter the bar and the outside vendor would bring the food to our table. This service was pretty cool, because we could eat and drink at the same time. All three meats were deliciously spicy. We had a total 100 sticks and between three of us we devoured all the food brought to our table.

After eating, we played the same dice game played during our New Year Celebration. A new rule was added to the game which made it a bit more difficult. You could only look under your cup one time. You had to remember all possible combinations you could have made to be able to keep up with all the changing numbers.

It was a nice place to sit and drink, enjoy the music, eat some local street bar b cue, and play some dice games. Also, I thought it was pretty cool that I was the only westerner in the bar.